GTA Trilogy Update Removes Dev From Splash Screen, CEO Responds

But it's still in the "final credits"

by · Nintendo Life
Image: Rockstar Games

Earlier this week, Rockstar Games rolled out a surprise update for the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy on Switch and other platforms.

Fans quickly noticed how the port team 'Grove Street Games' had been dropped from the trilogy's splash screen and now the developer's CEO Thomas Williamson has responded on social media.

It's worth noting Grove Street is still in the end credits, but the reference to GSG when booting up the game is now gone.

Grove Street Games CEO Thomas Williamson: "Speaking entire hypothetically: It's a dick move to remove primary developers from credits in an update, especially when an update includes hundreds of fixes that were provided by those developers that stayed out of players' hands for years."

So, just to reiterate, Grove Street Games is still credited, but it's no longer in the "initial splash screen" when you boot up any of these games, as highlighted by multiple GTA sources online.

It's also noted how 'Video Games Deluxe' (a team made up of former L.A. Noire developers) is now credited in the game's latest update.

In case you missed the news earlier this week, one of the biggest changes in this latest update was the addition of 'Classic Lighting mode' which can now be turned on or off in the menu, and restores the "look and feel of the sky in the original games".

Related Articles

News Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Receives A Surprise Update, Here's What's Included

Update: The Switch patch has also gone live

Have you returned to any of these games on Switch since the latest update? Let us know in the comments.

[source comicbook.com, via gonintendo.com]

Related Games
   •  Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition (Switch)
See Also
   •  Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition Review
   •  50 Best Nintendo Switch Games To Play Right Now (2024)

About Liam Doolan

Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief.

Comments 18

Perhaps Rockstar felt they didn't want to advertise a company that disappointed so many people

How entitled can this CEO prick be after he accepted to take over such a massive project with a small and untalented team that managed to botch the classic GTA games over the last decade on mobile and PS360 and did the same thing with DE, but a whole lot worse! Their previous patches managed to fix one thing and break a few more, and they treated the Switch version the worst!
The latest patch is the merit of Brendan McNamara’s company, not of Dog S**t Games. They should have never laid their hands on such beloved games

@AnonyQ Perhaps, but it's still kind of a ***** thing to do. They worked on this game so it feels petty to remove them from the splash screens, even if they're still listed on the credits.

@KoopaTheGamer I have to disagree. It's like a CGI company doing a really bad job on a film, then having to call in someone else to fix it. If the original was really bad it's totally justified to remove the original company's name

@Flashlink99 It's not only the fault of Grove Street Games. Rockstar's QA really messed up here. They should've tested it properly and not rushed it out before it was finished. Bad quality assurance, too tight schedule and limited funds can break even the greatest developers. And the responsibility of those three is with the publisher.

@KoopaTheGamer I feel we'll never hear the whole story but yes, lots of blame to go around

This is just passive aggression. It wasn’t Grove Street’s decision to release the games as a complete buggy mess. According to Williamson, it was GS that patched most of it and if he feels strongly enough to vent publicly that they should be credited, he’s probably right.

Rockstar have very poor quality control and generally will take your money and run. Vice City on iOS had a game breaking glitch that made it impossible to get past the helicopter chase level. It never got fixed and still they sold it, knowing that they were ripping people off.

Yeah, that is a d*** move indeed, updates should just improve games, not (partially) cancel people - as great as it is that this update apparently does the former it absolutely shouldn't do the latter!

Rockstar is the one to blame for allowing the collection in such a poor state to begin with, not Grove Street Games.

Really weird that Grove Street Games also did the excellent work on ARK for Switch. They basically turned an unplayable port into something really impressive. It's still ARK, but that's commendable.

so bad to read these and feeling not really cool seeing them on Chat fight.
Both doing a incredible good job

@HingryHuppo Vice City on iOS was also Grove Street Games

If the rumours are true that Rockstar pushed to get it released when they did to get a game out for the holiday season before it was finished then yeah that's a pretty crappy thing to do.

@kevinm360 Yes, but Rockstar released it. All games are full of bugs and glitches and need to be tested and fixed. It’s not the fault of GS that it was released that way.

This psychotic. I can't imagine a reason they would remove them from the opening unless Rockstar was threatening a lawsuit.

It's too easy to think Rockstar 'fixed' the games when ultimately they decided to release their flagship games in the state they were in, for the price they did. Who knows what time or financial constraints Grove Street Games had placed on them.

As for the lastest update, it's looks a lot better even on Switch, the Atmosphere is much improved. Vice City sunset looks great and San Andreas even has the little clouds of mist that blow in during a rain storm as they did in the original, plus a better match for the original colour tinting. Still missing ambient occlusion under cars on Switch so they look like they are floating at times, and vehicles weirdly speed around in circles in Vice City airport for some reason. They also fixed the unfinished looking mismatched map screen in Vice City, that previously appeared as if someone had roughly cut and pasted two versions together.

They are certainly a lot better overall now than at launch, but would still have a way to go to be definitive in my opinion.

Performance hasn't been improved even a bit, and that's all anyone needs to know about this update. A mediocre game with stable performance is a 6, a great game with performance issues is a 2.

If I was a 21st century snowflake, I might think it a bit misandric that 'dick move' is used pejoratively.

I'm not, so I don't, fyi. It does indeed seem like a bit of a dick move, but I'm not sure that going public with that opinion is going to help GSG going forward.

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