Everything wrong with the disastrous GTA Trilogy remaster

ROCKSTAR has told CD Projekt to hold its beer and unleashed an absolute mess of a game with GTA Trilogy remaster.

Cyberpunk 2077 was the last doozy of a botched launch but the remastered set of GTA games are the latest contenders.

GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition released last week and reports of issues plaguing the games have been coming thick and fast over the weekend.

Ranging from comical in-game snafus to changes that have riled up the community, here’s everything wrong with the GTA Trilogy remaster so far.

Janky character models

This Twitter thread by @VinePotato has some stellar examples of the weird and wacky ‘updates’ in the remastered trilogy.

Players are mystified as to why they look so terrible, especially when existing mods have done a significantly better job.

The Vados Peds Pack is one such mod that you can check out above in comparison to the original game and the new remastered trilogy.

What’s even more frustrating is that Rockstar has started handing out DMCA takedowns to mod makers.

This is after years of letting the community loose on its older games, with no legal threats.

So we’re stuck with these abominations for now folks.

Missing songs

Fans of the original titles have noticed that there’s a whole bunch of songs missing from the trilogy.

While you might be disappointed that your favourite tunes are missing, licencing issues are to blame.

Rockstar issued a list of confirmed tracks for the games to VGC and the site has put together a list of the tracks that are confirmed to be missing.

It includes Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark at the Moon, Micheal Jackson’s Billie Jean, and Express Yourself from N.W.A. to name a few.

However, dataminers discovered that the unlicensed tracks were included in the files of the PC version of the game.

Rockstar took the title down from the store, saying a number of files were “unintentionally included.”

But it’s now back up and running.

The rain

The rain in the GTA trilogy has been causing all sorts of problems, mostly because it obstructs your view of everything else.

The only respite from the cascading wall of white stripes is in the water, which is somehow immune to raindrops.

You can take a look at just how bad it is in the the tweet above.

Multiple examples have been posted to social media showing how much it interferes with the gameplay.

At the moment, there’s no fix on the way so you’ll to avoid missions when it’s raining if you can.

The plus side is that you can disable the rain with cheat codes, but it’ll also disable achievements.

Graphical bugs and audio problems

If the comical character models weren’t enough, the remastered GTA trilogy is brimming with bugs and glitches.

This Twitter thread by YouTuber Shane Luis rounds up a few of them caught on the Nintendo Switch.

NPCs with missing faces and disappearing heads, clipping, and weird spelling areas popping up on in-game posters all add to the sub par experience.

It’s not just your eyeballs that are in for a let down. Your ears are also going to be furious.

The sound in the game is off — from vehicles, to guns, to reports of some audio files missing completely, it’s a mess.

Framerate issues

The GTA trilogy has two modes: Performance, and Fidelity.

Fidelity prioritises visuals over framerate, targeting 30pfs. Performance targets 60fps for a smoother gameplay experience.

Well, that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory, and you’d think hitting 60fps on a PS5 or Xbox Series X would be easy for a remaster of such old games.

Of course, the game fails on that front as well, as illustrated by this video taken from the PS5 version.

GTA 3 is the worst offender, with the framerate dropping to as low as 35fps in performance mode.

San Andreas and Vice City fare a little better, dipping down to 40fps.

Interestingly, this seems to be a PS5 issue. The Xbox Series X version of the game is locked in at 60fps and 30fps respectively, as seen in the same YouTuber’s video.

Hopefully we’ll see a patch for this, as well as the mounting list of other problems.

Destroying memories

Perhaps the biggest crime on the list is Rockstar ripping off your rose-tinted glassed and smashing them to bits in front of you.

If you played the original GTA: San Andreas, you’ll remember how big the map felt.

But with the removal of the fog, that helped out with draw distance and the rendering burden on consoles at the time has exposed just how small the map is.

You can now see Mount Chiliad from CJ’s house, as well as seeing the entire map from peak.

Of course, things are going to feel different when you revisit older titles, but Rockstar made a conscious decision to remove the fog and it was a terrible decision.

If you picked up GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, let us know how you’re getting on.

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