After eight days of fan complaints about the remastered version of the "GTA" trilogy, Rockstar Games has finally responded, promising to "reach the level of quality that the game deserves."

Describing the myriad technical flaws as "unexpected," the company apologized for the state of the game, which "was not released in a condition that met our quality standards."

The developer then claimed that it would address the problems in all three games. It said, "We have an ongoing plan to address technical issues and improve each game." With each planned update, the games will reach the level of quality they deserve."

Rockstar promised that a new patch "addressing many of the issues" would arrive "soon." It is unclear if this is what was mentioned, but version 1.02 already has an impressive number of improvements in all formats, squashing some of the more egregious bugs, including map holes, broken collision detection, and platform-specific crashes.

There are also bonuses for PC players. Fans were doubly outraged when the original title was removed from the online store due to the poor quality of the remaster, but Rockstar has fixed this. Classic PC versions of [Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will soon be added to the Rockstar Store as bundles. In addition, those who purchase the PC version of "Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition" from the Rockstar Store by June 30, 2022, will have these classic versions added to the Rockstar Games Launcher Library at no additional charge

Rockstar Games Launcher Library at no additional charge.

Rockstar had previously remained silent about criticism of the remastered versions. However, this statement may have something to do with player anger boiling over into nasty social media attacks directed at the developers and artists responsible for reimagining the game in the Unreal Engine.

"It pains us to tell you that we have heard reports of members of our development team being harassed on social media." We would like to ask that our community maintain respectful and civil discourse on this release in order to resolve these issues."

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After last year's infamous failed launch of Cyberpunk 2077, it took creators CD Projekt Red months to bring the game up to playable standards. In some ways, the challenge for Rockstar is even greater. These were three huge open-world games, ported to new engines with myriad problems in no less than four formats: PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. In fact, it's even more complicated than that when you consider the differences between Xbox One and Xbox One X, for example, or the differences between PS5 backwards compatibility and PS4 native play: this chart from Digital Foundry shows all possible performance penetrations and the scale of the challenges ahead

The chart shows the scale of the challenges ahead.

It is not very encouraging that Rockstar describes technical issues as "unexpected." Serious pre-release playtesting would have revealed invisible bridges, rain that stops over water, and a Switch version that suffers from a frame rate in the low 20% range for a 20-year-old game.

Squashing the most obvious bugs should be relatively easy, but the definition of what constitutes "quality as it should be" may be very different from Rockstar Games. The updated character models being compared (unfairly, but not unjustly) to the Nintendo Mii are not bugs.

Rockstar Games is a much larger company than CD Projekt Red and may have the resources to match, but this is not a project that will either succeed or fail for the company. If "Cyberpunk 2077" is not a success, it will not justify the years spent on its production, but "GTA" has already brought in billions of dollars in profits for Rockstar over the years. The fact that the remaster will make money is really just a bonus.

With that in mind, we would be surprised if "Definitive Edition" ever reached a state where it matched the dictionary definition. For now, however, we can only wait and see if actions speak as loudly as words.