It's long been rumoured that Rockstar was beavering away on remastering the PS2-era Grand Theft Auto games: Grand Theft Auto 3, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas. The existence of these remasters has now been confirmed thanks to the South Korean games rating board, which has classified Grand Theft Auto The Trilogy—The Definitive Edition. Per a machine translation, the collection is rated "youth not allowed".
The remasters had reportedly been planned for an earlier release but have suffered various internal delays, and their existence was all-but-confirmed thanks to Take-Two's statement to investors that it's working on three unannounced "iterations of previously released titles." The publisher's recent aggression towards mods using assets from these games is also notable.
Take Two usually reports Q2 earnings in early Nov., stacks releases/news right before.- Rockstar's acquisition of Ruffian announced 10/14/20- RDR2 PC announced 10/4/19 for 11/5 launch (earnings reported 11/7)- RDR2 console launch was 10/26/18, earnings reported 11/7- etc https://t.co/uAoQi5ShNvSeptember 30, 2021
A Kotaku report on the remasters credited the remasters to Rockstar Dundee, the studio previously known as Ruffian Games, which was itself a spinoff from Realtime Worlds, which itself was a spinoff from DMA Design (which is now Rockstar North, and in Edinburgh). Those Scots eh.
The games are supposedly being remastered using Unreal Engine and a mix of new and old graphical styles, as well as featuring an updated UI and other tweaks that bring the games more in-line with the more recent iterations of Grand Theft Auto. Take it with a pinch of salt, of course, but the trilogy will apparently hit PC in 2022.
