Grand Theft Auto trilogy remaster is almost definitely happening

Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas are three of the biggest and most beloved games of all time. GTA fans have long petitioned Rockstar to remaster the PS2 classics for modern consoles, but as yet to no avail. That looks like it’s about to change.

The past few months have brought many leaks and hints that GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas will be remastered and sold in trilogy form. The latest comes from Rockstar itself: After the games studio updated its PC launcher on Tuesday, internet sleuths discovered that it contained code related to the three PS2 titles.

Grand Theft Auto III – Unreal, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – Unreal and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – Unreal are all listed in the launcher’s data. The “Unreal” may substantiate previous rumours that the remastered GTA games would run on Unreal Engine.

Prior to the launcher update, the most recent indication that the remastered trilogy is incoming came from South Korea. The country’s rating board classified a game titled “Grant Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition” as being unfit for youths. (Ain’t that the truth.) 

Rumours of the Grand Theft Auto trilogy being remastered started swirling in August, after Take-Two, which published Grand Theft Auto games, told investors that it was working on three unannounced “new iterations of previously released titles.” 

Grand Theft Auto diehards have been starved of new titles in recent years. GTA V, first released in 2013, generated over $900 million in 2020 thanks in large part to the continuing popularity of GTA Online. That gravy train has dulled Rockstar’s need to develop a GTA VI, with the only announced upcoming Grand Theft Auto title being the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S version of GTA V, coming next March.