Rockstar has finally released the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, just three weeks before the release date for the GTA remaster collection. Prior to the release of the new trailer, players had been rightfully concerned at the lack of any details about the game. Since the announcement a couple of weeks ago, there had been no actual information about the games. No screenshots, no gameplay, even the announcement was essentially just a logo.
With Rockstar’s release of the new trailer, it’s clear why they had kept the collection under wraps. The trailer shows off the graphical enhancements present in the new collection. The enhancements are, to put it politely, underwhelming. Rockstar’s trailer shows before and after shots of scenes in all three games, designed to show how much the games have improved. What it actually does is show how little has been improved. At times, it’s difficult to even tell which parts are old and which are new. It’s just such a minor improvement. If the rest of the ‘improvements’ to the games are on the same level as the graphics, we’re probably in for a disappointing collection.
The fact is, Rockstar has been phoning it in for much of the past decade and the new GTA remasters are another example of that. Gone are the days where Rockstar led the industry with the biggest games, best stories, characters, and gameplay. We’re now firmly in the age of copy and pasted Rockstar ‘remasters’. The GTA V ‘remaster’ is another example of that. Coasting with minor improvements to a game that people loved a decade ago but that is well past its prime now.
The least that could have been done for the GTA trilogy remasters is actually remastering and updating the games. Instead, they look like games that could have come out on the PS3 instead of the PS2. Excellent ‘remaster’.
