Three games in the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) franchise have received a surprise update that improves the overall gaming experience for consoles and PC.
Rockstar Games' latest updates come out for each of the remastered GTA games that are included in the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition collection. They make every single title simply play better and make them look closer to the originals that were released on the PlayStation 2.
GTA Trilogy Update
The trilogy collection features GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas. These games were greatly criticized the moment that they launched in November 2021. While the titles included visual upgrades, they played relatively poorly.
Other issues that players complained about include a lot of bugs, ugly character models, various new glitches, and broken textures. There were some updates made to the collection a few months after it launched but remained mostly disappointing for about two years.
Netflix then released the remastered trilogy on mobile devices in 2023 that were surprisingly in better condition than the original. The changes from that release are now coming to console and PC, according to Kotaku.
Rockstar Games quietly released the new update for the controversial GTA Trilogy on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, on Nov. 12, 2024. X user BeskInfinity documented a lot of the new updates to the collection.
One of the most noticeable changes is that there is now a new "Classic Lighting" option. This was first introduced in the mobile ports of the games on Netflix.
In titles like San Andreas, the new option makes the game look a lot closer to the original released on the PlayStation 2.
A Ton of Improvements
The latest update to the GTA Trilogy collection comes as the latest entry in the franchise is currently set to release in fall 2025. This means that there is still about a year left for fans to wait before getting GTA VI, Game Rant said.
Other changes in the patch include the addition of new fire and glass-breaking effects as well as changes to swimming. Another glaring issue from the original collection was in-game rain, which has now gotten a visual upgrade.
The mobile ports were made by Video Games Deluxe, which brought many welcome improvements to the titles. These affected fog and draw distance, textures, character models, as well as collision.
The remastered trilogy is also available on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, according to Polygon.
