Why do people like GTA Definitive Edition now?

The title of this post is a question I’ve been having recently. In case you’re unaware, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition is a garbage, poorly-made “remaster” of the so-called 3D trilogy of Grand Theft Auto. It was based on the horrendously made mobile port codebase, and featured poorer graphics, terrible model “overhauls”, hilariously shoddy AI generated upscales, performance problems and glitches. Basically, it had the entire smorgasbord of awful game design and then some.

(Notice Ryder’s noodle arms. Thanks, Grove Street Games.)

On release, this piss poor attempt at re-selling 20-year old games with the same old engine under the hood but with a new renderer was rightfully called out for what it is. Many people were able to easily point out all of it’s constant glitches and faults, both technically and aesthetically, and was the subject of a lot of mockery, critique and memes for it’s entire lifetime. Almost.

Recently, with the new GTA VI trailer announcement, and even a new version on Mobile that re-introduced “Classic Lighting”, the general consensus of players seems to have shifted to a more positive one. For instance, the San Andreas DE Steam rating is now “Mostly Positive”, and many of the latest reviews are gloating about either how “good it is” or how “it’s actually not that bad”. And I simply find it baffling.

As someone who has spent tens, if not hundreds of hours playing these games, both before and after Definitive Edition’s release, I could instantly tell it was a sham and an inferior version of the games that I personally love to death. I even knew this was going to turn out poorly, after I found out who exactly made this version.

(For more detailed context, check out these videos from Vadim M. The TL;DR is that Grove Street Games, formerly known as War Drum Studios, was behind the terrible San Andreas mobile port, on which the Definitive Edition is based off of.)

And sure enough, my expectations were met, as the terrible ports were released in a terrible state and received terrible scores. To the surprise of, I guess the Rockstar faithful, but not to anyone who actually paid attention to the pre-release material. But now, almost everyone seems to, for some reason, love and defend this port, to the point where a GTA content creator I like to watch was called a “skinhead” for daring to criticize it. I wish I made that up.

So why doesn’t it deserve the newly-obtained admiration? Well, firstly, I completely dislike the idea of the “sell now, fix later” model that almost every AAA release seems to be doing now. People buy into hype, the game comes out as shit, people get angry, and then immediately forget everything that happened because “it’s good now”. They get so happy over it, that they defend the game to the bitter end and attack anyone who dares to point out the past wrongdoings of a soulless corporation that doesn’t see them as anything but walking dollars.

But, okay. Let’s say that they tried their best to fix it, 2 whole years after it originally came out and only on mobile for some reason. It still isn’t enough. It will never be enough. And that is because the problems of this version go all the way down to its fundamentals. Like I mentioned previously, the Definitive Edition is based off of the mobile version codebase, which was made by the same company, and is a terrible port with so many bugs and visual issues that even 1 and a half hour of video isn’t enough to show all of the faults of its Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, which are basically the same versions but with some extra bugs on top.

And it isn’t just functionally where their reliance on this bad codebase is permanently crippling DE. Aesthetically, it gutted a lot of the original systems of San Andreas, such as multiple weather presets for each area. Originally, the game had 16 weather presets, and they were all completely different. Now, there are only 4 presets, and even worse, they look the exact same. Even with Classic Lighting, they essentially only match the weather presets of Los Santos, and simply apply those presets to the other areas as well. So now we have green deserts at night.

For context, this is what it’s supposed to look like.

It’s the same deal in Las Venturas.

So they didn’t actually fix shit in the aesthetic department. Whether it was out of laziness, technical inability due to the shit codebase, or the expectation that no one would play or travel outside of LS is anyone’s guess. But hopefully it becomes crystal clear that there was nothing actually improved, and anyone that still wants to claim otherwise is either blind or a moron who doesn’t respect artistic integrity.

(If you wish to get more details about this particular issue, I recommend TJGM’s video on the topic.)

And lastly, I want to address that any actual bug fixes from the new mobile version that someone might point out were NEVER issues in the original game to begin with. They’re purely from this shit version and are essentially just patching what they fucked up. To give you an example: animated props, such as the Burger Shot in Verona Beach and the oil rigs in Las Venturas worked perfectly in the original, but were broken in the demaster and fixed later on mobile. People are essentially praising fixes for issues that were never a part of the actually good versions, which I simply find funny and depressing to think about.

So, I’m still left wondering: “Why do people like GTA Definitive Edition now?” None of the issues they fixed were part of the originals, and there are still massive downgrades present that will either never get fixed, or simply can’t be fixed. Polishing a turd will not make it anything other than a turd, and yet the fanboys still defend the turd as if it was anything more than a turd. They happily lick it up, and don’t question it. My hope is that you see the turd for what it is and simply walk around it, like any other person would.