For some months now, rumors were swirling around that Rockstar Games was working on remasters for Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The rumors really began heating up when Rockstar parent company, Take-Two, suddenly began to issue takedown notices for multiple Grand Theft Auto mods. The prevailing thought was that they knew something was being worked on that could jeopardize sales of some sort of a re-release of those titles.
According to a new report from Kotaku, that is precisely what is about to happen. Rockstar Games is working on remastering these three classic GTA titles and will be released this Fall, perhaps around late October or early November. The platforms included for release will include PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Stadia, Nintendo Switch, mobile, and PC. There is a possibility that the PC and mobile ports "might slip to next year as Rockstar focuses on developing the console ports first."
While some might have expected Rockstar to space these releases out, if not releasing them on each games’ respective 20 year anniversary, sources told me that this isn’t the current plan. Instead, it seems all three games are to be released in one collected package that may only be sold digitally.
Kotaku's report says that these remasters are being made using Unreal Engine, though the version of Unreal Engine being used was not specified. These remasters will be a blend of "new and old graphics." One of Kotaku's sources says that "the visuals reminded them of a heavily-modified version of a classic GTA title." The UIs for each game are also reportedly getting an overhaul, though no specifics were given.
I tend to mute radios in games these days, it all becomes too noisy for me, but the Vice City soundtrack is probably something they should preserve as much as possible.