English Ben has given the Rockstar modding community the ultimate holiday gift.
He just launched GTA Frosted Winter: Remastered, a fully upgraded version of one of the most popular Grand Theft Auto III mods ever.
What Is GTA Frosted Winter?
GTA Frosted Winter is a total conversion mod for Grand Theft Auto III. As a total conversion mod, the assets and content have been changed to the extent that it plays as a new game. But, the player still needs a copy of the original game to run.
The game originally released in 2010, made primarily by Lithuanian modder BEGINit of Pistukas mods. It then received a ReHAMSTERed edition from another modder, HAMSTER978, in 2015.
GTA Frosted Winter ReHAMSTERed continued to receive updates, but GTA Frosted Winter: Remastered is an even more ambitious undertaking.
What Was Improved In GTA Frosted Winter: Remastered?
There’s way too much to cover in the changelog, but we’ll share what most gamers will want to know here:
- Most of the code has been rewritten using modern standards to improve readability, stability etc.
- Hundreds of general bug/crash fixes (eg models not being loaded, player not being properly initialised etc)
- Added voiceover (increase/decrease volume with NumPlus/NumMinus)
- Added Silent Patch
- Added Widescreen Fix
- Added Autosave
- Added snow weather effects from Liberty City Stories
- You can now properly skip cutscenes
While GTA Frosted Winter earned some level of infamy through the years, there were a lot of issues with its game design. With BEGINit’s blessing, English Ben made so many changes to the mod, down to each mission, to the point that it feels like a completely different game.
Why Would I Want To Play A Non-Canon Grand Theft Auto III Fan Game?
You may be a younger fan and don’t know anything about Grand Theft Auto III. But you may also be an OG Grand Theft Auto III player who had no interest in this total conversion mod back in the day. Why would you want to go through the hassle of making this work to play it?
GTA Frosted Winter tells the story of Joey Leone, after the original playable character, Claude, cashed in a hit on Joey’s dad Salvatore. Before this happened, Joey was friendly with Claude and hired him for some missions.
Joey, who was originally voiced by Michael Rapaport, gets his time to shine in this mod. Now, he’s taking back his position as the head of the Leone crime family from treacherous associates. He gets to literally play the hero with some missions that pits him vs. terrorists.
If GTA Frosted Winter isn’t the best of Grand Theft Auto III’s total conversion mods, it’s up there with the best of them.
You can download GTA Frosted Winter Remastered on Github, Filen, or Internet Archive. You can watch the official announcement trailer below.
