by In its latest financial earnings report, GTA owner Take-Two suggested that the next mobile port of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive edition has been delayed.
The anthology title, which collects remastered versions of GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas in one package, was originally released late last year. It came to PS5, Xbox Series X | S, Nintendo Switch, as well as the latest generation consoles. Rockstar announced that it would be coming to iOS and Android devices in the first half of 2022.
But a new financial document now lists the game as scheduled for release during fiscal year 2023, pushing its release back to April 2023 (thanks, VGC). Rockstar needs to release the game next month to make it to its original release window. Given that we haven’t seen any pre-launch marketing material in recent weeks, we don’t expect that to happen.
a welcome delay
It seems likely that the mobile port of GTA Trilogy will release later than Rockstar initially expected, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. When the game launched last year, it was panned by critics and gamers alike.
A score of technical glitches undermined the game’s performance on all systems, while various stability bugs caused the game to frequently crash in its early versions. His art direction raised a few eyebrows too, with redesigned character models and several classic locations revamped. But while the changes were in keeping with the stylized overkill of the original games, they took the collection in a visual direction that many fans were unhappy with.
Rockstar’s decision to pull the original games from online stores only exacerbated the bitterness of fans. Not only had they been served a technically flawed and artistically bizarre collection, purists couldn’t even buy the original versions to play. Rockstar was ultimately forced to back down, offering disappointed players a free game as compensation and even apologizing for the poor state of the release.
Four months after the release of the trilogy, Rockstar released a major update that dramatically improved gaming performance. It resolved numerous bugs and introduced a handful of stability improvements, finally fixing the biggest glitches that had plagued the game since its release.
In light of those launch issues, the GTA Trilogoy mobile port delay shouldn’t be too daunting. That Rockstar is taking more time to develop the title is a good indication that the collection will launch in a much better state on mobile than console and PC. Be thankful, then, that when you return to Grove Street on your tablet, you’ll probably be able to do so without a hitch.
However, Rockstar might not care at all. The Trilogy was a huge commercial success despite its litany of glitches and technical problems.
It is probably also healthy to adopt a similar perspective to other development projects. Bethesda recently delayed Starfield, announcing that the long-awaited sci-fi RPG will now hit stores in 2023 instead of this November. Excited fans will be disappointed to have to wait several more months to get their hands on the game, but at least they’ll have some time to think about what they really want from it.
