Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced, a visually upgraded version of its original 2015 PC release, has received immense backlash from users since it launched on 4 March on Steam, making it the studio’s worst-rated game on the platform.
The game currently sits at a “mixed” user review rating on Steam, with only 54% of its 20,521 total user reviews being positive at the time of writing. For context, this unfortunate position was previously held by 2023’s Grand Theft Auto III – The Definitive Edition, which currently fairs slightly better with 66% of its 3,590 reviews being positive.
Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced updated the original version of the game on PC to include features previously exclusive to its current-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions, such as improved graphical fidelity, ray tracing and faster loading times, alongside the latest vehicle upgrades from Hao’s Special Works and animal encounters. The new version is also a free upgrade for all players who currently own the game on the PC, alongside support for Story Mode and Online progress migration.
All this does sound good on paper, but the same couldn’t be said about its execution. Despite promising an easy migration for returning players, many reported running into a myriad of errors such as being deemed “not eligible” for account migration, a blow especially harsh for those who spent hundreds of hours painstakingly building up their online characters. Furthermore, Rockstar also removed online text chat completely, which was previously a key feature on the platform to communicate or cooperate with other players while performing heists in the game. Despite the game being enhanced, some players also reported that it ran poorly even with high-end setups, citing stuttering issues and poor image quality.
These negative sentiments are abundant in the game’s Steam review page, with one user summing up the migration issues by writing: “I can’t migrate either of my two accounts, [Rockstar] support is completely useless and can’t help. With the game being over 10 years old, I am sure as hell not going to completely restart all my progress in Online just to get marginally better graphics”, while another stated that the game felt more like a downgrade, and that it “looks worse, runs worse, and somehow feels clunkier than ever”.
Despite its issue, the game remains one of the platform’s most-played games on Steam, ranking at eighth place on its charts with an all-time peak of 187,059 concurrent players at the time of writing. Still, the community has made their frustrations loud and clear, although Rockstar Games has yet to respond with an official statement or come forward to provide fixes. Only time will tell if the company would step up and resolve these issues in a timely manner, and allow the game to truly live up to its “enhanced” name.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Joey Leong
