A recent bug in the next-gen rerelease of Grand Theft Auto 5 downgrades the graphics to it’s most rudimentary levels, making it look like PlayStation 2 or even PlayStation 1 grade visuals. The issue has been identified by Reddit user unrealmaniac who posted the image shown below saying, “I seem to have the PS2 version of GTA 5.”
The issue has been found on both the retail and digital versions of GTA 5 but has not yet been confirmed on Xbox One. While it doesn’t seem to be a widespread issue, there seems to be a correlation with the bug and driving particularly fast and pushing the framerate to it’s limits as stated by Reddit user SoundCaster:
A reinstall of the game helped me fix this issue. Seemed that driving fast or doing anything at all would cause the game to stop for 5 seconds then the world would not render right for a bit..heck i was going through the roads a lot.
Unrealmaniac replied,
“I don’t think that’s what caused it for me, I’ve finished the game and own faster cars and it’s never happened before. the game froze a few seconds after this image and I had to go back to the ps4 menu and reload it”
I’ve personally encountered this issue once, but it never recurred and simply reloading the game fixed it, with no apparent need to reinstall anything. I reached out to Rockstar’s support account on Twitter and while they’ve yet to comment, another Twitter user jumped in stating that the issue can also be caused by spotty internet connections while playing GTA Online.
