GTA remasters
Remasters of GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas are strongly rumoured
As we await yet another version of GTA V (a game originally released in 2013 on PS3), this time on PS5, it’s hard to remember how prolific the golden age of the series was on PS2. Not only did GTA III hijack the open-world genre in general, but follow-ups Vice City and San Andreas took that to an even higher level, all within three years. It’s a trilogy worth remembering, and, as is strongly rumoured, worth remastering.
There’s a host of reasons games can’t be released at that rate any more. For starters, Rockstar is known for its games being cutting-edge. As games have become more detailed, production costs have risen and timelines lengthened. And cranking out three games built on the same foundation is no longer the done thing, especially when there’s the constant drumbeat of GTA Online setting sales records in the background with every new update.
And yet, if you load up the PS4 ports of these gems, you’ll find they’re still great to play. Considering they are even playable on PS5 via backwards compatibility, the rumoured remasters will need to be more impressive than the existing ports. Which seems to be exactly the case, if the details floating around are to be believed.
According to the rumours, the remasters are being made in Unreal Engine, and will stay true to the original releases where possible, with a stop at the garage along the way for a fresh coat of paint. Expect new visuals that look like an updated version of the classic, blocky look, and a UI that’s close to the originals. The mixture of classic style with a polished update should see the versions rising the criminal ranks to sit higher than the simple ported PS2 games already out.
CRIMINAL RECORD
Rockstar isn’t known for properly remastering its older titles, so the project could set the standard for how the studio’s back catalogue is treated in future (we’re already polishing the saddles hoping for Red Dead Redemption to return).
From the sounds of it, the remasters will land at a similar time to the PS5 versions of GTA V and GTA Online, which are due on 11 Nov. With GTA III celebrating its 20th anniversary in October, it’d be an appropriate time. Despite the last mainline entry’s wild success, GTA has been laying low for almost a whole generation, and so rumours or not, with a rap sheet like this it’ll always jump up our most wanted list.