2021 has, by far, been both a good and bad year for fans of Rockstar Games' "GTA" series. Specifically, this year, the "GTA Trilogy" launched as a problematic collection, the company took a strong stance against modders, and "Grand Theft Auto V I" remains out of sight sight.
Rockstar Games GTA Highlights
According to the story by Kotaku, Rockstar Games' extremely popular GTA franchise is finding itself in a weird place this year. To add, the game series is still very huge despite years without any new release.
As per an article by GameSpot, GTA Online and Red Dead Online have both set new player records in 2020. To add, the studio decided to launch what was described as a "somewhat nice looking but totally broken collection" of the GTA classics remastered.
Rockstar also took a strong stance against modders this year and despite numerous leaks and rumors, still no "Grand Theft Auto VI" is in sight.
GTA Roleplaying Became Extremely Popular
'GTA' roleplaying became popular on Twitch in the past year and some crafty modders have even managed to reverse-engineer "Vice City" as well as "GTA III's" source code. This has made it possible to port the classic games into more modern platforms.
Other highlights this year involve Rockstar Games paying a tech-savvy fan $10,000 for fixing the problematic loading times of "GTA Online's" PC version.
Despite these positives, things, however, went bad for "GTA" fans and players in 2021 as well.
Rockstar Games vs Developers
Things started to get weird when Rockstar and Take-Two issued a DMCA takedown against the developers behind the "GTA III" and "Vice City" source code project. This led to some developers standing their ground against Take-Two lawsuit, which is still ongoing as of press time.
Take-Two then started issuing legal threats and DMCA takedowns in a bid to remove the old "Vice City," "GTA III," and even "San Andreas" mods from the internet.
This, in turn, angered modders, some of them have even discovered that decade-old mods have been taken off the internet due to legal takedowns.
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Modders Took Down GTA Mods in Fear of Legal Retaliation
Other creators decided to shut down old "GTA" mods in fear of legal retaliation. To add, the publisher also removed "GTA IV" mods, including the much needed save file that became popular among the "GTA" community.
The heat fueled further speculation that Rockstar decided to release its own remastered versions of the "GTA"" classic trilogy. The rumors were eventually confirmed in August by Kotaku and Rockstar indeed wanted to remaster ports of "Vice City," "GTA III," and "San Andreas."
The company also wanted the remaster to be available across all major consoles, including the Nintendo Switch.
Excitement built up once again but "GTA" fans were met with frustration when news of tje delay for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S ports of "GTA V" and "GTA Online" broke out. Rockstar announced the four-month delay through a trailer that did nothing to impress their disappointed and frustrated fans.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian B.
