Rockstar Games is removing GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas from Steam to make way for GTA: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition

Rockstar Games finally announced the worst-kept secret in gaming: remastered versions of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas.

The developers have confirmed their plans to delist the original titles from all digital retailers for PC and consoles, replacing them with Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition across multiple virtual stores.

While this has been done to promote the remastered titles, it serves as a massive blow to video game preservation. Be that as it may, Rockstar Games has already announced its strategy to promote remastered versions of the titles mentioned above and has no plans of modifying them.

However, fans have found an exciting way to manoeuvre the developer's strategy and are leaving reviews on Steam to suggest players purchase the original titles before they're removed forever.

This will allow players to own a copy of the original title forever to remind themselves of simpler times.

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Rockstar Games removed popular GTA map mods, which gave everything away

Over the last few months, developers have removed popular map mods from GTA Online, which more or less made it inevitable that Rockstar Games was working on remastered versions of its classic titles.

Interestingly, the developers tried their best to keep everything under wraps, but a series of rumours and leaks gave everything away.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition will make its way to virtual shelves later this year, and the enhanced and expanded version of GTA 5 has been postponed to March 2022.

The GTA trilogy will be available later this year (Image via Rockstar Games)

The Trilogy will be available for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and the Rockstar Games Launcher.

The announcement doesn't mention Steam, so it's possible that once the original titles are removed, Steam's association with the GTA franchise, too, might come to an end.

More importantly, the devs haven't announced a specific date on when the titles will be removed from the platform. However, those who want to own the original titles before they're removed permanently should do so immediately.

The remastered versions will be available later this year and will boast modern graphics and mechanics but will retain the original storyline and characters for those who already own them.