Rockstar's Remastered Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Is Real And Coming Soon To PCs And Consoles
It took a minute, as well as a handful of leaks and rumors, but Rockstar Games has confirmed plans to release remastered versions of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. All three will be packaged up into Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition (try saying that one time fast), and released to multiple platforms, including PC and various consoles.
All three are fan favorites in the GTA universe, with sprawling open-world settings for the player to explore and do things they wouldn't (or shouldn't) do in real life. The reason for the release now (well, soon) is because GTA III will be celebrating its 20th anniversary later this month.
"We’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all the Grand Theft Auto fans who have supported the games over the past two decades. Your love and appreciation for these games has helped push the Grand Theft Auto series forward with every iteration," Rockstar said.
The three-game bundle will release to PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (via the Rockstar Games Launcher). Rockster is promising "across-the-board upgrades," and while the developer is not going into detail just yet, it broadly mentioned "graphical improvements and modern gameplay enhancements."
Whatever those entail, they apply to all three games. Rockstar also says that despite whatever changes are in store, the remastered releases will maintain the classic look and feel of the original releases from up to two decades ago (GTA III released in October 2001, Vice City in October 2002, and San Andreas in October 2004).
In preparation for the launch, Rockster is working with its digital retail partners to remove existing versions of all three games. Anyone interested in the originals and who doesn't already own them will have to act fast, if they're not interested in the remastered versions for whatever reason.
Rockstar didn't mention pricing or a release date, saying only the bundle is arriving "later this year." If we had to guess, we'd say sometime this month, given that all three games originally released in October (just in different years, obviously). But that's not a given just yet. It also mentioned plans to release the trilogy on iOS and Android in the first half of 2022.
Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto V continues to sell like gangbusters, even as Grand Theft Auto VI rumors heat up.
