GTA Trilogy Games Feature Refrigerators, Trees, And Other Assets Taken Directly From GTA 5

GTA The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is out now, and if some of the assets look familiar, that's because Rockstar used assets from Grand Theft Auto V for the re-release. Producer Rich Rosado told USA Today that as part of the process of updating San Andreas, Vice City, and GTA III, the team borrowed assets like trees and refrigerators from Grand Theft Auto V.

"There was a great variety of GTA 5 trees that could cover all three of our titles here," Rosado said. "The result was very pleasing. It made everything feel more dense and full."

Rosado said it was more efficient to use pre-made assets than create new ones. The recycled assets shouldn't stand out, either, as they were tweaked to fit with the visual palette of each game.

"The same is true for a lot of the surrounding areas like the barbershops, where we also lifted assets," Rosado said. "If we need a new refrigerator, why make a new one have a perfectly good one right here? It was done in a way that, hopefully, that unless I told you that was refrigerator from GTA 5 you wouldn't even notice because it just blends into the background."

Rockstar and developer Grove Street used an AI program to "scale up" the textures on recycled assets, while real human developers touched them up by hand as well.

Buying The Definitive Edition is the only way to get all three games together in one package. However, San Andreas comes to Xbox Game Pass on November 11 by itself, while GTA III will be released through PlayStation Now in December.

According to a report, if the GTA re-releases perform well, Rockstar might remaster Red Dead Redemption next. Take-Two's Karl Slatoff recently outlined Take-Two's position on remasters, saying it's all about the money.