Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas may have seen another light of day following a remastered release on modern platforms. But nowhere does the game take advantage of today’s modern hardware in gaming, not even in the graphics department at the very least. So, one fan took it upon himself to improve the game’s visuals the way he thought it should be—rendered with more polygons and more vivid details that put the original remaster to shame.
Catching the attention of DSO Gaming, the unofficial project by YouTuber 12th Hour was brought to light, which shows one man’s attempt at doing what the people at Rockstar Games could have had—but did not.
Largely inspired by the lackluster remastered rendition as his muse, 12th Hour went through the painstaking process of recreating everything about the game from scratch, starting from the game’s protagonist, CJ, himself—a task that itself took multiple attempts, employing different tools, to come up with a decent modern iteration of the main character.
Next to follow was the game’s iconic neighborhood, Grove Street, which also had undergone a recreation from scratch—a not-so-easy feat considering the level of details that had to be filled in from nothing while mimicking everything that the original represents.
From putting the right buildings in their proper places to the placements of the more life-like foliage, the reimagining of Grove Street was a serious understanding that took multiple days to accomplish, and to a satisfactory result.
Although the fan-made mod seems to be an improvement to the game, it is sadly not made to be playable. It is merely a concept design, made entirely by an individual with plenty of talent and a lot of spare time on his hands.