GTA: San Andreas gets the next-gen remake we always deserved

With so many great offerings in Rockstar Games’s Grand Theft Auto series, there are perhaps too many to choose from as to which is the standout best but GTA: San Andreas might be on the top of many fan lists.

Grand Theft Auto began on PC and the original PlayStation in 1997 and while it was a controversial game, it was restricted by the hardware technology of its time offering a basic top-down perspective. However, when GTA III arrived for the PlayStation 2 in 2001, it not only changed the game for the series but also what is expected of 3D open-world titles.

Check out the GTA: San Andreas trailer below!

Grand Theft Auto III was followed by two more equal classics with GTA: Vice City in 2002, and the topic of today’s discussion, 2004’s GTA: San Andreas. The story of GTA: San Andreas follows Carl “CJ” Johnson who returns to his Compton-inspired home and learns that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

GTA: San Andreas offered the largest open-world map in the series to date, an epic story campaign that kept you hooked from start to finish, tons of activities and you could even change CJ’s body and fitness levels depending on your activities in the game. You could say that GTA: San Andreas was such an advanced game for its time, that it would still give games of today a run for their money.

So when Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition arrived in 2021 featuring remasters of GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas it should have been a winning formula for Rockstar Games. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

GTA The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition was a hot mess full of bugs, glitches and not all that many improvements over the original games. While the state of this remastered collection had improved over time, the damage had already been done with fans demanding refunds.

Thankfully at least, as reported by DSOGaming, a batch of screenshots (via Twitter user ItsHoje) have been shared revealing an upcoming fan remaster for GTA: San Andreas and it’s looking like the remaster we should have received in 2021.

The screenshots in question have come from the Discord server dedicated to the GTA: San Andreas remaster and this project is benefiting from reworked textures as well as ray tracing and path tracing software, and the results are stunning. The project is far from complete, however, as it seems to lack its colourgraded lighting but the potential is there to see.

At this time, DSOGaming reports that this mod isn't available to download just yet but hopefully, we won't be waiting too long for the full version of the remaster to conclude its development cycle.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is out now on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.