The upgraded rereleases for the classic PS2-era Grand Theft Auto games from Rockstar have been released recently and has been inundated by harsh criticism, along with refund requests.

When the trilogy was announced last month, the general consensus seemed to be that of excitement and anticipation. After all, these were originally groundbreaking games in many ways that helped put Rockstar on the map in a major way.

It is also worth noting that fans have been begging for some sort of upgraded or updated rerelease for literal years.

This was low hanging fruit. Easy money. Just take the games they had already released almost 20 years ago and rerelease them in a way that works. That was it. There was very little room to get it wrong.

But just like how Luke Skywalker found that tiny opening to destroy the Death Star, Rockstar found the exact and specific way to ruin what could have been the easiest win for them in years.

The released games, which to remind you again are almost 20 years old by now, suffer from poor performance issues and too many bugs to list. 

Additionally, the game is literally unplayable on PC. This has persisted for several days.

Anyone who thought that the AAA games industry would learn anything after the disastrous release of Cyberpunk 2077 has once again been proven wrong.

Rockstar is slow to respond to these criticisms but the support website has been updated with a message promising to update and upgrade the performance of the remasters as soon as possible. 

What, 20 years wasn’t enough?

Let’s finish this article by taking note that Grand Theft Auto: Online is currently the most successful entertainment title of all time. This includes every film, book, TV show, game, comic, anime, or cave painting (I don’t know your life) you’ve ever seen. 

The game had a budget of USD 265 million and made back USD 6 BILLION.

Perhaps the fact that the games that made Rockstar their name to begin with have been treated so poorly is a sign of how the Rockstar of today is very different from the Rockstar of 2001.

We are currently playing GTA San Andreas from the GTA Definitive Edition on our Twitch and YouTube.