Let’s take a look at all of the collectibles in the game which carry over to The Definitive Edition:

• Tags – There are 100 in total and they require spraying over them.
• Oysters – There are 50 in total and, as the name indicates, they’ll be found in bodies of water. This could be at the bottom of the ocean, a lake, river, swimming pool, you name it.
• Snapshots – Less of a collectible and more of a photo op, Snapshots require taking pictures of key landmarks and locations. You’ll need 50 in total.
• Horseshoes – Essentially just a floating horseshoe, there are 50 in total to collect.
• Unique Stunt Jumps – There are a whopping 70 Unique Stunt Jumps spread throughout all of the different locations. Again, they’re not necessary for full completion but if you’re done with everything else, they’re worth pursuing.

Check out the video guides below courtesy of Naizurus and GTA Series Videos to find everything. It’s recommended to play through the story and unlock all of the different cities in the game in order to have free access. You should also wait until the Jetpack is available for free use since this trivializes a lot of the collectible hunting. Head here for more details on how to unlock the Jetpack along with other special vehicles.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – The Definitive Edition is currently available as part of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch. Check out our review for the trilogy here.

The most straightforward method is killing dealers, who carry about $2000 or so. Simply wait around and observe any NPC that looks conspicuous. They could be a dealer if another NPC approaches them for something. Kill the dealer and collect the cash they drop. Note that dealers are armed and will fight back (even with just a pistol) so be aware. Also, your Wanted status will go up so be careful not to lose the money you just earned.

Another good method is horse betting. Just head to the Inside Track in Downtown Los Santos under the Mulholland Intersection. Save beforehand and bet as much money as possible on the horse with the lowest chances of winning. If you win, then the returns will be pretty significant. Upon losing, simply reload your save and try again until you win big. In terms of high dividends with the least amount of effort, this is perhaps the best.

Otherwise, one can peruse the different side activities and earn cash through those. When jacking an ambulance, police car, taxi and so on, press down on the Right Stick/Num 2 and you’ll receive a mission. If it’s a police car, then this will be a Vigilante mission while an ambulance must provide medical care. One hilarious way to farm these missions is jack a fire engine or ambulance, park it nearby, commit some crimes that necessitate either (explosions and injuring pedestrians), and then go back to the vehicle to start the activity in question. As you complete more of these activities, they’ll become tougher and offer higher payouts.

Then there are missions that involve burglary. Unlocked with mission “Home Invasion,” players essentially sneak into NPCs’ homes under darkness and steal everything inside. Look for a black van (there’s usually one near Ganton Gym), then press Right Stick/Num 2 to start the burglary mission. From there, you can rob a house, stealing items and garnering lots of money.

Finally, there are Asset Missions. Though they offer money upon completion, the main payoff are Assets, which are buildings that will give you cash upon visiting them. After the mission “Doberman”, the Johnson House will become an Asset that can be revisited for money. For other Assets, Roboi’s Food Mart is a good choice from the beginning and only requires completing four courier missions (whose payouts are roughly $15,000 which also helps).

Upon becoming an Asset, the food mart can accumulate up to $2000 over time. The best part is that it will be available even after Los Santos is closed off to the player following “The Green Sabre” mission.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is currently available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. Check out our official review here.

Of course, several days before release, there were numerous concerns. Why hadn’t Rockstar, or the actual developer Grove Street Games, showcased any extensive gameplay footage? Why hadn’t we seen improvements like the Grand Theft Auto 5-style control scheme in action? The trilogy was already receiving a bit of backlash for its aesthetic, which leaned more into a cartoony 3D style than photo-realism, so there was already some skepticism.

Sure enough, we wouldn’t get any real comparison footage until the trilogy was actually released. And by that, we mean “released on consoles.” If you were one of the unlucky few to buy it on PC, then Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition – arguably one of the most anticipated remastered collections in years – was unplayable at launch. This is due to the Rockstar Games Launcher going down for maintenance. So if you spent $60 on this, sight-unseen or not, then you couldn’t play it for more than a day after launch. But wait, there’s more.

Eventually, the Rockstar Games Launcher did come back online but the GTA Trilogy was made unavailable to play or purchase due to “files unintentionally included” in the same. These “unintentionally included” files were discovered by dataminers to be comments by the developer and several unlicensed songs. The comments are whatever but these were songs that were supposedly removed due to licensing issues. Instead, they were actually just disabled. While they can’t be accessed by your average player, it’s still not a good look.

Keep in mind that all of this is just with the PC version of the game. The console versions have been knocked for performance issues, including frame rate drops on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S (don’t even get us started on the Switch version). While the environments have been praised, character models have seen better days whether it’s in strangely shaped shoulders, odd fingernails or faces that are completely different from the original games. Then there’s the oppressive rain in GTA: San Andreas, misspellings galore, glitches, broken textures, the list goes on.

Rockstar has already begun the process of issuing refunds for the PC version and Grove Street Games has already promised updates while also stating that it was “enjoying this unparalleled level of scrutiny.” While comparisons have been made to Cyberpunk 2077 and its disastrous launch, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition isn’t quite there. These games, at their core, are still classics and fans are enjoying what they can. But the fact that a project with the Rockstar Games label – which last adorned Red Dead Redemption 2, lest we forget – and which has been a dream for many a fan has come out in this state is just downright confounding.

What the hell happened? How did the developers fumble this so epically? Many have pointed to the fact that Grove Street Games was originally War Drum Studios. It’s known for developing the 10^th Anniversary Editions of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City along with bringing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to iOS, Android, Xbox 360 and PS3. Those ports were dubious for not only making unwanted changes to the visuals but also having performance issues and bugs (which is interesting given how positively received San Andreas was on iOS).

One could easily point to Grove Street Games and blame them for everything but things are often more complicated than they seem. How long the remastered trilogy was in development, the budget allocated to the team, the effect of current events on the development pipeline – all of these things are to be taken into account. But how much of a role did Rockstar play? What was Rockstar mandated and what wasn’t? Did it make the decision to go with this new art-style because it didn’t want to shell out the cash and resources for full remakes? Were remakes initially planned and then reduced in scope due to the amount of resources required?

It’s hard to say but given how Take Two Interactive has been taking down fan remakes and mods over the years – and how it’s already begun doing the same for Grand Theft Auto 4 – it’s hard to believe that there isn’t some agenda at play to cut corners while reaping in the most profit possible. Besides, at the end of the day, it’s Rockstar and Take Two that decide how to market the game. They made the decision to not show any extensive gameplay footage or comparisons until launch.

They also made the decision to price this trilogy at $60 while removing the original versions from sale on digital storefronts. Rockstar even made the decision to not have any pre-loading for the PC version. It’s almost as if this was to prevent anyone from getting their hands on the incriminating data before launch and causing a stink, thus impacting sales. Why did they think no one would notice after launch? A question for another time.

One could theorize about all of this endlessly and push Rockstar to do better. One could also get angry at Grove Street Games for doing a poor job or curse Take Two Interactive for its money-grubbing ways. They could also try to enjoy the trilogy for what it is and perhaps find some tinge of nostalgia that the 3D Universe provides (warts and all).

But is this whole debacle going to have any major, long-term ramifications for either Rockstar or Take Two? Some fans will be less than eager to jump into the definitive edition of GTA 4 when that’s inevitably announced (based on what rumors say, at least). Yet there will be millions who jump in, no questions asked, just because of the Grand Theft Auto name. And even if that fails, well, don’t worry because the hype cycle can kick off once more when Grand Theft Auto 6 is announced.

That the same thing can happen, year in and year out, regardless of which game or publisher makes headlines is indicative of much bigger problems. Regardless, if you’re going to pick up Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, then either hold off until updates have improved performance or try GTA: San Andreas on Xbox Game Pass to see if it’s your speed. Or you could buy any number of remasters/remakes, to say nothing of all of the great new games that have been released this year. You may not put much of a dent into Take Two’s financials but at least you’ll be having fun.