Rockstar Apologize For GTA Trilogy Issues; Returns Classics

I’m not the first and I am sure I won’t be the last to say that the Grand Theft Auto: Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is probably one of the most egregious examples of not caring about quality for your fans. From god-awful design choices that spit in the name of the original creation (who removes the fog from San Andreas?) leading me to have to hold back the many swear words I have stored up for this dreadful example of remastering/port/whatever this was, it turns out that Rockstar somewhat agrees that this was a bad move.

Releasing a statement on Friday, the publisher spoke about “the unexpected technical issues that came to light as part of the launch,” going on to say, “Firstly, we want to sincerely apologize to everyone who has encountered issues playing these games.” They were not exactly apologizing for the state of the games, more so that they were caught on such a grand scale of letting a bull defecate everywhere.

The statement continues on to say, “We have ongoing plans to address the technical issues and to improve each game going forward. With each planned update, the games will reach the level of quality that they deserve to be.” So, there will be some kind of quality assurance they should have been held to in the first place?

I know, I am editorializing, but these are three of the most influential games in history. The mid to late 00s, the majority of the 10s, and the entirety of Ubisoft for the last 15-years were based on the back of Grand Theft Auto III. The graphical uplift and seemingly quick overturn of these games is like plastering over Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” because you don’t understand it. Furthermore, it is not as if the games were made from the ground up by Grove Street Games, they used what seemed like the source code.

It is not as if Rockstar couldn’t afford to provide them with as many resources as possible to finish it properly. How can we guess they used the source code? Delisting the original games, then having to temporarily delist this trilogy because data was left the final release.

Ok, returning to the point of this article, the statements from Rockstar go on. They mentioned that they would be returning the classic versions of all three games to the Rockstar launcher, this time as the classic bundle. Alongside this return to the storefront, “everyone who has purchased Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition for PC from the Rockstar Store through June 30, 2022, will receive these classic versions in their Rockstar Games Launcher library at no additional cost.”

This currently isn’t the case for those on consoles though, especially the Switch, which was the first example of all three on Nintendo systems. I think I made it clear, these were a mistake to release in such a state. It is nice to see Rockstar (somewhat) agree with that concept, though don’t expect it to change their attitude anytime soon. Here is hoping it puts others on notice for such shoddy work.