Despite the historical importance of Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, the 2023 remastered release bundling the three games, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition, has been widely panned. Developer Grove Street Games maintained silence on the subject since the release, but recently, studio owner and CEO Thomas Williamson finally broached the subject.
In an interview with WCCFTech, Williamson was asked about the widespread backlash against Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition from the variety of bugs and other issues with the release. He acknowledged that the title certainly had its problems. However, he also noted that internal metrics showed the studio that it was being played and enjoyed by many players.
“Regarding GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition, I agreed with most of the people’s reactions,” said Williamson. “That’s probably about the most I can speak personally for how we felt about what came out and what our intentions were. But unfortunately, I feel like we did not agree with how the game was released and the response to it from a development side, and I think that would have changed the narrative significantly.”
“However, at the end of the day, looking at the behind-the-scenes metrics on those games, there were a lot of people who were playing them and really enjoying them. There was also a lot of people who wanted more, and I don’t blame them. We all view these games as these really, really important milestones in gaming history, so I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to work on them.”
Williamson went on to note that the only real way we would ever get a “perfect redux” of the classic Grand Theft Auto trilogy would need to involve Rockstar more directly. However, he also mentioned that the nostalgia fans have for the originals likely played a big role in the mixed reaction.
“I’m also in agreement that I don’t think there’ll ever be a perfect redux of those that’s not done by Rockstar proper. If their Rockstar North team took it on and did some crazy thing, that would be awesome. But the reality of what it was also kind of mixed with people’s nostalgia. You don’t see these remasters coming out very often and getting complete praise, especially with really complicated, big gaming milestone projects like that. It’s a really hard thing to do, and we were cognizant of that when we were working on it. We knew that there was no way to make everybody happy.”
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition was expected to bring in a host of improvements to the originals. While it did introduce more modern lighting techniques, among other things, it was also plagued by several bugs that ranged from missing music to awkward character models, animations, and scenes. Subsequent improvements arrived years later, making them more playable (though still far from perfect).
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS.
