Rockstar has confirmed Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is coming to celebrate Grand Theft Auto 3's 20th anniversary, but will GTA 3 and Vice City finally let players swim? Swimming was not introduced to the Grand Theft Auto franchise until San Andreas originally, alongside other new gameplay elements like bicycling, a better aiming system, and stealth mechanics. Letting players swim in Vice City and Liberty City would be an exciting prospect - but is it possible?
In the press release for Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, Rockstar states that this new remastered GTA collection will include "across-the-board upgrades, including graphical improvements and modern gameplay enhancements for all three titles." No specifics of the actual changes are given, but the announcement also mentions these upgrades will still maintain "the classic look and feel of the originals." While vague, this description - along with the fact that these new Grand Theft Auto games are coming to mobile as well as current-gen consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X - do give an indication of the direction Rockstar is leaning in.
Players should not expect a full graphical overhaul, and it's very, very unlikely Grand Theft Auto 3 will ever look anything like Red Dead Redemption 2. However, some small upgrades like an increased resolution, better frame rates and lighting effects, and tighter controls will likely be featured in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, and vehicles that were only available in Vice City (such as motorcycles and helicopters) are also fairly safe bets for inclusion in GTA 3's Liberty City sandbox. Swimming, however, may not be.
In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas there were a lot of things Carl Johnson could do which no other protagonist in GTA had been able to before. Carl could customize his vehicles at tuning shops, mix and match different types of outfits at clothing stores, change his haircut and tattoos, ride a bicycle and a jetpack, start gang wars, bet on digital horse races and in casinos, rob houses in GTA's best minigame to date, and, among a myriad of other unique skills, he could swim. Before San Andreas, falling into the water in a Grand Theft Auto game was a death sentence. These days, players can use submarines and scuba gear to search for sunken treasure.
The water that surrounds Liberty City in GTA 3 looks toxic and uninviting, and while the cool blue water of GTA: Vice City appears to be much cleaner it is still equally as deadly. Neither Claude nor Tommy Vercetti ever seemed to learn how to swim, and one accidental jump or twist of a car's steering wheel can easily send players back to the hospital and out of whatever mission they were just in. In San Andreas, CJ doesn't have this problem. Quite the contrary, as an entire set of collectibles - Grand Theft Auto's oysters - are hidden inside San Andreas' bodies of water to facilitate exploration. This also means that the entire ocean floor (and the sides of all the objects that touched it) in San Andreas had to be modeled - something which may not necessarily be true for Grand Theft Auto 3.
If players can swim in the GTA 3 version included in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, it is likely they will only be able to swim on the very top layer of the water. There is no reason for Claude or Tommy to dive down to the bottom of their respective oceans - not unless Rockstar is planning on putting San Andreas' collectibles into other GTA games - and it would likely be a lot of work for the developers to implement CJ's underwater controls.
However, this simple change - not immediately draining a player's life when they become submerged - would make for a big quality of life improvement. Rockstar could still use the Wanted Level system to prevent players from spending too much time on islands they are not supposed to currently have access to, but allowing them to recover after accidentally driving their car off a ledge (or runway) into the ocean would be a huge bonus. Swimming in Vice City would make even more sense - from a lore perspective, the nasty water surrounding GTA 3's Liberty City could easily just be called deadly, but there is no excuse not to let players take a dip in Vice City's refreshing beach. Perhaps Rockstar would even fill all the suspiciously empty pools dotting Vice City's map if the water wasn't a death sentence to Tommy Vercetti.
Vice City and San Andreas both built off Grand Theft Auto 3's foundation, but the inclusion of swimming in San Andreas was one of the series' biggest mechanical steps forward. Swimming has been included in every Grand Theft Auto game since, and makes for a much more realistic and enjoyable experience. It would make sense if Rockstar added swimming into GTA 3 and Vice City... but it would also not be that surprising if it didn't.
It's unlikely Grand Theft Auto 3's pager will be replaced with a cell phone, even though both San Andreas and Vice City feature mobile phones (and, curiously, both take place BEFORE GTA 3 canonically). It's also unlikely that Grand Theft Auto 3 will feature purchasable properties or the ability to work out in different gyms like San Andreas does. It's hard to determine exactly what Rockstar means by "maintaining" the look and feel of the original games while also offering "across-the-board upgrades," but adding in non-lethal water would be a major change for both GTA 3 and Vice City, and might go too far towards removing the "feel" of GTA 3's 2001 release.
Things which were cut from the game but reintroduced later, like airplanes, will most likely return to Grand Theft Auto 3 in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition. Vice City additions like different player outfits are less likely, but still possible, and a larger pool of motorcycles and boats would be most welcome. However, it's also possible Rockstar won't add any "new" content to these old games at all.
"Modern gameplay enhancements" doesn't necessarily mean players will be able to swim in GTA 3 and Vice City - it could just mean Rockstar is planning on fixing those games' horrible aiming systems. It's also unlikely the company would want to change the public perception of the original games too much - especially since it is removing the original GTA titles from the Rockstar store. Being able to swim in every GTA game in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition would be ideal, but players won't know if they can or not until more information is released.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition will release on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC in 2021, and on iOS and Android in the first half of 2022.
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October 09, 2021 at 02:55AM
