Achievement images for the upcoming (but still officially unannounced) remasters of GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas have spilled online, in the latest leak pointing to the buffed up trilogy's imminent reveal.

The new achievement art, posted to Twitter by GTANet, come from an update to Rockstar's own game launcher made available this week. Game icons for the three remasters were also found.

Kotaku reported last month that the three remasters were being developed by Rockstar Dundee (formerly Ruffian Games) and worked on in Unreal Engine. They will resemble a "heavily-modded version of a classic GTA title" - alongside an updated UI, but with gameplay which sticks "true to the PS2-era GTA games as much as possible".

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A listing for Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition has been spotted on South Korea's game rating board's site.

According to the details of the listing, the application for an official rating was made by Take-Two Interactive for an action game originating from the United States.

The game has been rated 18 or unavailable for youth in the country.

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The makers of another long-running GTA San Andreas mod have pulled it offline themselves amid the ongoing crackdown by Take-Two.

The lead developer of GTA Underground, one of the largest, most ambitious mods for the 16-year-old Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, announced development had ceased and all downloads hauled offline after six years of work.

This was "due to the increasing hostility towards the modding community and imminent danger to our mental and financial well-being", chief developer dkluin wrote in a post on GTAForums.com.

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In the latest of a series of legal battles by Take-Two Interactive, the developers of the re3 project are being sued by the company in the state of California.

What's so significant about this particular project is that it's built on completely reverse engineered source code of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It's also been ported over to the Nintendo Switch, Playstation Vita and Nintendo Wii U.

Under US law, reverse engineering is generally legal. To further minimise encroachment of the law, the developers avoided using any leaked source code, and any copyrighted assets such as music, dialogue and images. Rather, players need to own the original game in order to get those assets.

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This week, Kotaku reported Rockstar is working on remastered versions of Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, using Unreal Engine to create a mix of "new and old graphics".

The news helps explain Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive's recent GTA mod takedown spree - particular mods that recreated the games in question.

But it also helps explain why Rockstar nuked a San Andreas fan remake trailer in July 2020, too.

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Rockstar is reportedly putting the finishing touches to remasters of its open-world PlayStation 2-era classics Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas for release later this year.

Rumours of possible remasters for the games first bubbled up over the summer as fans began wondering why Take-Two's lawyers had suddenly started issuing a raft of takedown notices for classic GTA mods. Speculation grew further following Take-Two's recent confirmation it had three unannounced "new iterations of previously released titles" in the works.

Now, however, an investigation by Kotaku has revealed more tangible details, with its sources - who, the website says, have a proven track record providing accurate information on GTA Online and Red Dead Online - claiming Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas are indeed getting the remaster treatment.

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The makers of a 14-year-old Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas mod have pulled it offline themselves over a fear of a takedown from Take-Two.

GTA United is a mod based on San Andreas for PC. It unites the maps of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto Vice City in one game area within San Andreas, effectively replacing San Andreas' map.

Work on the free, non-commercial mod began in 2006. The first beta of what was then known as "Vice City 2 San Andreas" came out in early 2007. The beta for "Liberty City 2 San Andreas" came out soon after. Then, in late 2007, the beta for a combined effort called GTA United was released. Five years later, in December 2012, GTA United 1.2 was released. It remained available ever since - until now.

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A Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City reverse-engineering fan project is back online after Take-Two issued a takedown earlier this year.

As Eurogamer reported in February, the GTA 3 and Vice City reverse-engineering fan projects known as re3 and reVC were hit by a DMCA filed by Rockstar parent company Take-Two that claimed copyright infringement.

The fan-created source code for both games was made available on GitHub, offering a raft of eye-catching improvements over the original games officially available to play today on PC. (For more, check out our feature on how re3 came to be.)

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Reverse-engineered GTA code was restored after its developer filed a DMCA counterclaim on GitHub.

TorrentFreak reports GitHub restored a fork of the fan-made re3 project after its creator filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown counter-claim.

As Eurogamer reported in February, the Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City reverse-engineering fan project known as re3 was hit by a DMCA filed by Rockstar parent company Take-Two that claimed copyright infringement.

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Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City are both now fully reverse-engineered - a passion project from a small group of fans years in the making.

It means fan-created source code for both games is now available on GitHub. The code can be used by anyone to play both games on PC - with the hope others will take it and improve upon it further.

Re3 (reverse-engineered GTA 3) and reVC (reverse-engineered Vice City) offer a raft of eye-catching improvements over the original games that are available to play officially today on PC. The video below showcases the work and the changes made possible.

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