GTA leak hints at major visual improvements for new remasters

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GTA III remastered concept
A fan-made GTA III: Remastered concept.
Photo: Inter on YouTube

New details have emerged about the upcoming Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition ahead of its official debut. One leak hints at big visual enhancements for all three games, including “brilliant new lighting and environmental upgrades” — and high-resolution textures.

For those who plan to play the trilogy on PC, the leak also offers an early look at the trilogy’s minimum and recommended system requirements.

New details emerge for GTA: The Trilogy

Rockstar Games finally confirmed GTA: The Trilogy on October 8 after months of speculation. It promised support for the latest consoles and PC this year, and mobile versions for iPhone, iPad and Android that will follow in 2022.

Rockstar also promised “graphical improvements and modern gameplay enhancements,” but didn’t tell us much else about what kind of visual upgrades we can expect from the three remasters. Now, we have a little more.

Posted on the unofficial GTA Forums by tipster @alloc8or, which has proven reliable in the past, a leaked blurb reads:

Three iconic cities, three epic stories. Play the genre-defining classics of the original Grand Theft Auto Trilogy: Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas updated for a new generation, now with across-the-board enhancements including brilliant new lighting and environmental upgrades, high-resolution textures, increased draw distances, Grand Theft Auto V-style controls and targeting, and much more, bringing these beloved worlds to life with all new levels of detail.

The blurb also provides details on a promotion for PC players, which offers those who purchase the new GTA trilogy before January 5, 2022, a $10 discount on qualifying titles through the Rockstar Games Launcher. It included a link to a Rockstar support article which doesn’t appear to be live yet.

PC requirements suggest big improvements

The same leaker also posted some system requirements for PC players:

Minimum requirements:

  • Intel Core i5-2700K / AMD FX-6300
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 2GB / AMD Radeon R9 280 3GB
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 45 GB Storage Space
  • Windows 10

Recommended:

  • Intel Core i7-6600K / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB / AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB
  • 16 GB RAM
  • 45 GB Storage Space
  • Windows 10

PC gamers will know that these aren’t exactly top-of-the-line specifications, which is good news for those still playing on older systems or budget builds. But it doesn’t necessarily suggest that the GTA trilogy’s visual upgrades will be a disappointment.

If you compare the system requirements to those for GTA V on PC — which still looks terrific in 2021, a whopping eight years after its release — the GTA remasters call for significantly more processing and graphics power, and twice as much RAM (if indeed these leaked requirements are accurate).

So, those who are assuming Rockstar will simply rerelease GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas with minor changes — which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense anyway — could be in for a pleasant surprise. We expect to hear more from Rockstar in the coming weeks.

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