Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition is quickly going down in recent gaming history as one of the biggest let-downs for fans outside of Cyberpunk 2077, especially for those who enjoyed the original games on the PlayStation 2 and were looking forward to these newest iterations. With the GTA remasters receiving some of the lowest Metacritic scores of all time, there's a lot of backlash being thrust in the direction of both the games and those responsible for making and publishing them. The community is awash with people lamenting what could have been, with one of those things being the draw distance in the remaster of one of the titles.
In a post on the Grand Theft Auto subReddit, a number of users have been discussing how the reduction of the rendered fog and the draw distance in San Andreas is breaking the immersion by essentially allowing players to see the entire game map if they are high up enough. The original poster uploaded an image which shows a plane in the sky and, sure enough, below is the game's entire world, seen with perfect clarity no matter how far off in the distance things are.
One person in the comments remarked on how much smaller the map is to how they remember it, while another pined about this being the "end of the gaming industry," adding that such practices could lead to another video game crash, similar to what happened in 1983. On top of the immersion-breaking issues with the reduced draw distance, it's hardly surprising that GTA fans are asking for refunds, citing sheer disappointment with the remaster, as well as feeling let down by Rockstar Games, who are usually noted for putting out quality releases.
The GTA Trilogy has things people love and things they hate, overall. In general, it's still a re-release of three games that are considered classics, which increased the popularity of the franchise and heralded in the era of open world titles back in the day. But with the questionable quality-of-life treatment that's been given to these much-beloved entries, many fans feel that what's been put out is borderline shoddy work from all parties involved, and not worthy of the price tag.
Some may even speculate that this is simply the publisher buying time by re-releasing older games, knowing that much of the GTA community is eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series. GTA 5 was announced ten years ago, released eight years ago, yet there is still no word on Grand Theft Auto 6's development. It's safe to assume that the remastered trilogy is not placating people while they wait for a brand-new entry.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is available now for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.