Many will take it for granted that the GTA series is one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world. But before Grand Theft Auto 3 was released in 2001, the franchise was a simpler affair, though often fraught with media controversy. The third entry is easily considered one of the best open world games of the PS2 era and helped push things in the direction fans know and love today. However, it has been a couple of decades since Rockstar released that installment, so it would be interesting to see how the game would look these days.
Wonder no further, because the YouTube channel TeaserPlay, as spotted by DSO Gaming, has managed to do a faithful reimagining of Grand Theft Auto 3 in Unreal Engine 5. The teaser footage shows a much more detailed Liberty City, and the character model for Claude is impressively up-to-date. The purpose of the video, the description says, is to really show the power of UE5, and it absolutely does that, with much more modern visuals and superb lighting. Sadly, this is just a concept and no actual remake is currently in the works by the creator.
This is also not the first time TeaserPlay has reimagined one of the classic GTA games. Recently, they also showed what Vice City could look like in Unreal Engine 5. The sense here is that, while there were official remasters released last year, these videos demonstrate what could have been. The Grand Theft Auto - Definitive Edition has gone down as one of the most disastrous launches in recent gaming history, and although it seems to have been improved to some extent, many fans feel that it could have been so much more.
Of course, it does help that TeaserPlay has made this concept trailers in UE5. The engine itself is one of the most powerful and ubiquitous game development tools out there, with Unreal Engine 5 being used to make many upcoming titles, such as the new Witcher game.
With Grand Theft Auto 6 now in development, Rockstar is ready to take the franchise into new territories. But that's not to say that the classic entries should be forgotten. Perhaps one day there will be full remakes of the older titles, either by fans or the studio itself. But if there's one thing to take away from TeaserPlay's recent video, it's that there is definitely a call for this two-decade-old GTA game to make a comeback, especially given how much of an impact it had on the series.
Grand Theft Auto 3 is available on Mobile, PC, and the original Xbox.
Source: DSO Gaming