In the first two weeks following the update of the PC version of GTA 5, developers made substantial efforts to enhance the gaming experience, releasing five patches totaling several gigabytes. Despite these efforts, Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced remains the lowest-rated part of the series on Steam. Only slightly more than half of the 28,000 reviews are positive, currently resulting in a “mixed” rating. The situation might change in the future, considering that Legacy achieved nearly 90% approval over ten years with 2 million responses. But why does the community seem dissatisfied?
Seemingly, developers introduced graphical improvements that noticeably affected the appearance of the nearly 12-year-old game. Plus, the update was completely free—no money was demanded for it. However, it’s unclear why Rockstar Games chose to split into two versions. This has caused several inconveniences. Firstly, it only allows the transfer of a single save from story mode. Secondly, there have been numerous issues with the new “Online”. Thirdly, Script Hook V is useless in Enhanced (fortunately, the author says they are working on it).
Couldn’t all the proposed features have been added to the classic version as optional add-ons, to be enabled or disabled based on PC configuration preferences and capabilities? And shouldn’t part of the GTA Online audience not be left without content and features that were previously available exclusively on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S? This would have avoided all these transfer nuances and the potential separation of friends who played together but may now be scattered for various reasons. They’re now concerned that R* might decide to shut down the old “Online” alongside the PS4 and Xbox One versions.
Instead of introducing achievements solely in Enhanced on the Epic Games Store, they could have been added to Legacy as well. There are no issues with achievements there—it would just require the developers’ willingness. Another minor but surely annoying detail is that switching to the second build in Steam and EGS resets the played hours counter to zero. A minor issue, but unpleasant nonetheless.
Fragmentation affects the title’s statistics itself. For example, according to SteamDB, both versions of Grand Theft Auto V remain in the top 15 most-played, but a unified version consistently held a spot in the top five.
These might seem like minor details, but together they form a complete picture, prompting one to wonder: why reinvent the wheel? Imagine, this is the fifth edition of GTA 5 in eleven and a half years.
Source: gta.com.ua