Given how essential lighting is to the neon-soaked 80s presentation of Vice City, an updated lighting model along with clever retouching seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting in making the game’s presentation look palatable to the eye. Cars have glossy exteriors and reflect sunlight with precision which gives them a pristine look.

To retain an authentic feel reminiscent of the original, it seems that the developer has increased the intensity of neon lights in order to cast proper shadows on the roads. Reflections are more accurate and have higher resolutions, and buildings do have proper ambient occlusion. In the game’s Definitive Edition, a whole new lighting system has been set in place, and the difference is night and day. Shadows are also sharper across the board. Buildings, on the other hand, seem to have some baked-in self-reflections which are particularly noticeable at night which gives the illusion of ambient occlusion. There’s still no form of indirect reflection on most surfaces, although car surfaces and character models do light up and accordingly reflect some sources of light such as traffic lights. Shadows look sharper for the most part, and given the game’s setting – there are a lot more sources of light present in the environment. It still uses the same techniques, although that’s not to state there aren’t any improvements over Grand Theft Auto 3. In the lighting department, not a lot seems to have been changed.

Much like Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City also utilizes Criterion’s RenderWare engine. While it sits comfortably between a full-fledged remake and a low-effort remaster, there’s a lot of things that have been changed this time around. Less than a year short of the game’s 20th anniversary, Grove Street Games has released an updated version of the game in its latest Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. Rockstar would achieve success again with this release, proving yet once again why it’s one of the best in the business.

Ditching the dusty and drab streets of Liberty City, the game would instead take place on the sandy shores of Vice City which is, of course, inspired by real-life Miami. Just over a year later, the team would ship a sequel to its genre-defining open-world franchise in the form of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. After the unprecedented success of Rockstar North’s first 3D Grand Theft Auto, the team quickly began to make a sequel.

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