GTA Definitive Edition Trilogy still needs lots of work to be worth playing

GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition was launched six months ago and proved a disappointment among GTA fans.

It is an Unreal Engine 4-based, modernized remaster of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. Numerous problems, including art, visuals, language, and performance-affecting bugs, plagued the game during its initial release.

The technical glitches affecting the smooth running of the game have not been fully resolved. However, many other bugs have been fixed, improving the gaming experience.

Let's look at what has improved so far and what remains to be fixed for the game to be truly worth playing.

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Problems that still exist in the GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition

1) Visual design

Inconsistencies and specific faults continue despite patches. One that sticks out immediately is the misalignment of the grass, jutting out in awkward angles, seen in Vice City. Ambient occlusion continues to be strong, and thick outlines surround every piece of geometry near any kind of surface.

More fundamental design issues include characters and animation. NPCs are rounded off with additional geometry, sporting new material work, but the characters look weird, especially during motion.

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2) Fidelity mode

Fidelity modes underwent little change, though pegged to 30 FPS, as GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is plagued by off-putting frame-pacing stutters. While 30 FPS is exactly that on PS5 and Series X, Series S showed lags where it would drop into the 20s for a few moments.

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3) Textures

The texture work still has severe consistency issues and manifests errors, particularly when blown up to high resolution, giving off unrealistic images. Many textures are also only 128x128 pixels in size.

Thus, the AI's upscaled artwork appears mediocre and disorderly at high resolution. Also, though spelling and grammatical errors have been largely fixed, mistranscription and oversights persist.

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What has improved so far in GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition?

1) Overall stability

The granular level of improvement in the overall gameplay evidences the improvement in collision issues and problems with missions. GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is now much more stable than the launch version.

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2) Visual effect

Glaring problems with visual design, especially the rain effect, seem to have undergone significant improvement. For instance, 15 bug fixes finally increased the translucence of the rain, and the speed of the raindrops no longer changes according to the player's velocity.

Constant updates have solved the visual issues of high-altitude views in the game and introduced a hazy approximation of atmospheric scattering in San Andreas. Thus, it has improved the game world's look and allowed a proper sense of the scale of the area.

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3) Spelling errors

One of the biggest complaints in the Definitive Edition was gross spelling mistakes. It is frustrating to see spelling errors in the written content of the game.

With the latest patch, this has been rectified so far, proving that titles should not be released if they have these kinds of major issues.

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4) Overall gameplay

Regarding current-gen consoles, improvements are seen over launch codes as there is an across-the-board boost, visible in the modifications in the title frames. These are also modernized, revamped controls that compare favorably to the original releases and provide a smooth-running game, especially in Performance Modes, while allowing things to maintain 60fps.

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As problems continue, much to the aggravation of disgruntled players, they have to remember that some bugs, like their overall appearance, have remained unchanged in GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition even after updates.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinions.