Ever since Rockstar announced that Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy would be re-released for current-gen consoles and PC, fans have been speculating about whether it would be a lazy remaster (like Mario 3D All-Stars) or a complete graphical speculation about whether it is a complete graphical overhaul (like "Final Fantasy VII").

The lack of screenshots in the trailer suggested that this would be bad news for fans hoping for a full remake, but now the allegations about PC system requirements seem to confirm that this pessimistic view is correct.

According to a forum post shared by GTA News, the minimum and recommended system requirements are hardly state-of-the-art.

What are considered minimum specs:

Recommended specs:

They all state that the required hard disk space is 45 GB, presumably covering all three titles.

In short, these requirements are not particularly onerous by modern standards, nor does it appear that the games have new, intensive physics engines that will boost computational power when running on decade-old processors. The minimum required GPUs are not that new, debuting in 2013 and 2014, respectively.

The game is rumored to be rebuilt with Unreal Engine 4, and the relatively high RAM requirements at least point to improved models and higher-resolution textures. Hopefully, the rendering distance will also be considerably increased over the original.

This is consistent with a large number of posts on the Gaming Leaks and Rumors subreddit. We can allegedly expect upscaled textures, dynamic lighting, and faces that "don't look triangular"; it also seems to suffer a bit from the problem that "LA Noir" had, "oddly decent facial animation that doesn't fit the low-poly model.

The entire post is worth a read, but take it with an unhealthy amount of salt at hand, as it is completely untested. This is because the post claims that the "xmas" cheat code will cover all of Liberty City in snow.

I'm actually quite relaxed about this. While a total remake is a stunning achievement in its own right and provides a great introduction to newcomers, it may lose much of its appeal to those who grew up with the original.

I played the original top-down 2D "Grand Theft Auto" on the PC before the series began to take over the world. It is often said that the best remasters are the ones that are closer to how you remember them looking than how they actually look, and I certainly agree.

And after all, it was the gameplay that made the first 3D GTA game so influential. If Rockstar has managed to capture that addictiveness while not making it feel old-fashioned in the way it is played, I would feel that the result is a win-win for me.

Moreover, the measure of fanservice is not just in the graphical improvements. The leaked list of achievements suggests that Rockstar has an idea of what fans want to see, and trophies are named after memes, known game exploits, and community in-jokes.

For me, Liberty City, Vice City, and San Andreas are going to be lovely places to visit, if not as inspiring as they were at the turn of the century.