Grand Theft Auto Remastered Trilogy Leaks
The Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy looks like it has leaked. A welcome surprise for one of the biggest franchises out there.
This article is more than 2 years old
A GRAC application dated September 30 just outed Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy. The New York City publisher submitted an inquiry for South Korea’s Game Rating and Administration Committee to assess a game called Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition and hopefully clear it for nationwide release ahead of North American distribution toward the holidays. The game is currently listed in South Korea as being made by Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar Games’ parent company. Twitter user @Nibellion claims the trilogy has already been rated, though the report doesn’t seem to specify anything. Check out the tweet below:
With the Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy’s official release so damningly close, a similar request was likely sent to the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) around the same time. Unfortunately, proof of such an interaction continues to elude sleuths. The ESRB’s online servers have so far not registered any game with the same name, though there’s a chance Rockstar decided to keep things discreet in the interest of copyright protection. Nintendo is doing the same with their new N64-friendly JoyCon. The good news? Even a single inquiry proves the Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy exists, and now an unannounced video game is finally real. Insiders estimate the Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy – The Definitive Edition to arrive sometime this month or next.
Kotaku previously broke the news that Rockstar was already applying the finishing touches on an upcoming Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy composed of the following sixth-generation titles: Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Before Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online revolutionized how open worlds are developed and played, these three were the company’s highest-earning entries and the greatest games of their era. The Unreal Engine was used to modify the gameplay and graphics for next-generation audiences, resulting in an alphabet soup of PlayStation 2 ambience and PlayStation 5 performance and processing power. The re-release of the Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy is digital-only and will reportedly resemble user mods of Grand Theft Auto on PC. Brand-new Scottish subsidiary Rockstar Dundee was tasked early this year with remastering all three games into a single entry.
Unfortunately, expecting the remastered Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy to be anything other than a lazy rehash is unrealistic at best, a pipe dream at worst. Rockstar Games had previously released a game with the same title — Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — 15 years ago, and it’s basically the same bundle minus the next-generation improvements. It was a PlayStation 2 offering and was simply a glorified compilation of what fans already played before. To make matters worse, the version of San Andreas included in the pack was revised to keep hackers from accessing the Hot Coffee mod, a popular feature from that era.
Rockstar recycled the same marketing strategy by remastering the Grand Theft Auto trilogy twice: once for the PlayStation 3 and another for the PlayStation 4. The bundle coming to the PlayStation 5 this year is the exact same game, made to run on ninth-generation devices. With no DLCs announced, or additional story content promised, Grand Theft Auto remastered is shaping up to be the greatest gaming disappointment of 2021, running second place to the Grand Theft Auto V remaster arriving next year. It looks like Rockstar’s best is composed of one new video game and a bunch of glamorized re-releases. The company, usually celebrated for its out-of-the-box ingenuity, would apparently rather scam the public for more money than develop something new worth investing in. A shame.
The Grand Theft Auto remastered edition has a projected November 2021 release date.
