Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Delayed
The news regarding the game isn't so stellar. In fact, it's so rough that Rockstar Games has decided to delay the Grand Theft Auto trilogy release.
This article is more than 2 years old
It seems like a rising tide of bad news for Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition, which can’t catch a break ever since its release less than a month ago. Admittedly, this week’s patch, version 1.03, fixed more than 100 errors and bugs that plagued the not-so-definitive rerelease of Rockstar’s biggest hits, but the news regarding the physical version of the game isn’t so stellar either. In fact, Rockstar Games has opted to delay the release of the physical version of the game.
As reported by Polygon, Rockstar Games made some last-minute announcements via Twitter, stating that the physical version of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — Definitive Edition has been delayed for all platforms. Despite its release on digital storefronts, the physical version of the game was slated to launch at the beginning of this month, but Rockstar Games decided to push back the launch by a couple of days, to mid-December instead. Of course, delays this minute are more an annoyance than a proper disappointment, which is reserved for those who already purchased the game, and for owners of Nintendo Switch. The release of the Switch version of the game has been pushed to an undetermined date in 2022. You can see the company’s announcement about the Grand Theft Auto trilogy delay in the post below:
The digital copy of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — Definitive Edition launched in a disastrous state on November 11, producing enough fodder for online mockery of the game, considering that the purported remasters of classic Grand Theft Auto titles released with more visual and performance-related bugs than their respective originals. It’s worth noting that Rockstar Games has since apologized for the poor quality of the remaster, stating that it would release updates until the game reached a level of quality their fans and customers were accustomed to. The good news is that Rockstar already released one patch, so the process has started. The bad news is that the process had to start in the first place, which actually led to the aforementioned delay of the physical version of the game.
Frequent delays like we’re seeing with the Grand Theft Auto trilogy in the gaming industry are somewhat of a novelty. They very rarely occurred in the past since game developers often refused to give any resemblance of a release date until the game was very near its completion. There were two options back then: either release a completed and well-tuned game or release a game in a sorry state and suffer bad publicity. Patches were a rarity in single-player games, which received perhaps one or two patches that mostly resolved hardware-conflicting issues. Modern days paint an entirely different picture — most popular, established gaming titles developed by prominent names in the industry apparently launch just 70% done, with poor optimization and numerous bugs and errors.
The sales of modern titles are driven up by pre-orders incited by fantastic marketing campaigns, often promising something extra for those that pre-order. Once the gamers reveal that the game is riddled with bugs and errors, developers and publishers apologize, offer some menial compensation to the minority of gamers who opt for a refund, and fix the game through patches. Just like CD Projekt did with Cyberpunk 2077, and Rockstar Games did with Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — Definitive Edition. With everything said, a delay, no matter how big or small, is always a better option than releasing a poorly optimized game. Just look at Electronic Arts and DICE’s Battlefield 2042 video game. Apparently, the developers took pages from CD Projekt and Rockstar Games’ book.
