Something has gone very, very wrong since yesterday’s launch of GTA Trilogy on PC. As of last night, all mention of a PC version has been removed from Rockstar’s own site, and the Rockstar Games Launcher app has gone completely offline. Anyone who bought it before it vanished is currently unable to play.
It has been at least 18 hours since the sudden disappearance of the PC’s GTA Trilogy, and Kotaku can confirm that the Launcher is not working. Which means all Rockstar PC games, including Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA Online, are impossible to play.
For whatever reason, Rockstar chose to remove all versions of GTAs III, Vice City, and San Andreas from alternative PC stores — including Steam — meaning its bespoke software is now the only way to buy and play the game. Or indeed, the only way to not play it, for most of the time since it was released.
Services for the Rockstar Games Launcher and supported titles are temporarily offline for maintenance. Services will return as soon as maintenance is completed.
— Rockstar Support (@RockstarSupport) November 11, 2021
Rockstar’s support Twitter has described this as being, “temporarily offline for maintenance,” saying services will be back as soon as this is complete. Except, it said this some 18 hours ago, on the big launch day for the remastered versions of the first three 3D Grand Theft Auto games, that the company simultaneously made unavailable in any previous form.
Astonishingly, the account went silent for 15 hours, before early this morning finally acknowledging the problem hadn’t gone away.
We thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to work on restoring services for the Rockstar Games Launcher and supported titles.
— Rockstar Support (@RockstarSupport) November 12, 2021
“We thank you for your patience and understanding,” they said to customers who’d just spent money on a game that was suddenly taken away again the same day. They continued, “as we continue to work on restoring services for the Rockstar Games Launcher and supported titles.” We’ve contacted Rockstar for more information, and will update should they respond.
Kotaku has tested more recent GTA and Read Dead titles that remain on Steam, and they too cannot launch thanks to the server issues, tied in as they are to Rockstar’s launcher.
This is a very peculiar look, with a real lack of information from Rockstar to players who want to know what is going on with their purchases. Clearly something pretty disastrous has happened, for it to have been down for almost a day, and that the company is not even offering an estimate for when it might be working again.
We’ll update should things change.
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