Grand Theft Auto IV

Updated 28 October 2026 · Fan site. Not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.

Grand Theft Auto IV is a 2008 action-adventure game by Rockstar North, published by Rockstar Games. It came out on PS3 and Xbox 360 on 29 April 2008 and on Windows that December. Set in Liberty City, a version of New York, it follows Eastern European war veteran Niko Bellic, who arrives looking for a new life and the man who betrayed his unit.

What is GTA IV about?

Grand Theft Auto IV was the first main game in the series built for the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation. It rebuilt Liberty City from scratch as a close take on New York. The tone is darker and more grounded than in San Andreas. Its story is about the immigrant dream and how hard it is to leave violence behind.

Liberty City has four boroughs: Broker (based on Brooklyn), Dukes (Queens), Bohan (the Bronx) and Algonquin (Manhattan). A separate state, Alderney, stands in for New Jersey. Wikipedia describes the map as roughly three times the size of the one in GTA III, though it is smaller in area than San Andreas.

Who is the main character in GTA IV?

The protagonist is Niko Bellic, voiced by Michael Hollick. Niko is a veteran of a war in Eastern Europe. He arrives in Liberty City on a cargo ship after his cousin Roman (Jason Zumwalt) tells him stories of riches in America. The stories turn out to be exaggerated. Roman runs a struggling taxi firm and owes money to gamblers and loan sharks. Niko also has a private aim: to find the man who sold out his old unit.

Niko's first jobs come from helping Roman with loan sharks. He is soon working as a hitman for Russian mob boss Mikhail Faustin (Karel Roden). On the advice of Faustin's lieutenant, Dimitri Rascalov, Niko kills Faustin. Dimitri then betrays him and becomes the game's main villain.

Niko takes work from many sides of the city, including the McReary brothers, the Mafia and a shadowy government agency. His girlfriend Michelle turns out to be an agent named Karen, who recruits him for that agency. In return, the agency tracks down Darko Brevic, the traitor from Niko's unit, and flies him to Liberty City. Niko chooses whether Darko lives or dies.

What are the two endings in GTA IV?

Near the end, Mafia boss Jimmy Pegorino asks Niko to work with Dimitri on one more deal. The player chooses.

In both endings, Roman's girlfriend Mallorie turns out to be pregnant.

Gameplay

The game is played in third person and added a cover system to the series, along with auto-aim. Driving and physics feel heavier than before, helped by the Euphoria animation system. Niko's mobile phone is central. You use it to take calls from friends and contacts, start multiplayer, and enter cheat codes. In-game internet cafés let him send and receive email, and a subway network gives quick travel.

Online multiplayer supported up to 16 players on consoles and 32 on PC. Modes included deathmatches, street races and a Free Mode for roaming the city together. The Windows multiplayer was shut down in 2020.

Development

Rockstar North led the work with a core team of about 220 people. Counting other Rockstar studios and part-time staff, more than 1,000 people contributed. Producer Leslie Benzies estimated the budget at over US$100 million, which made it one of the most expensive games ever made at the time. Between 60 and 70 staff travelled to New York for research and took many thousands of reference photos. The script ran to about 1,000 pages, with around 660 actors recording some 80,000 lines.

Reception and sales

Critics loved it. The console versions hold a Metacritic score of 98 out of 100, and the Windows version 90. It won Game of the Year at the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards, and Hollick won Best Male Voice there. Reviewers praised the story, the city and the writing.

Sales broke records. On its first day it sold about 3.6 million copies and took around US$310 million, and it passed US$500 million in its first week. Guinness World Records named it the highest-grossing video game in 24 hours. According to Wikipedia, the game had sold more than 25 million copies by 2013.

There was also controversy. Critics objected to its violence and to the option to drive drunk. Some content was cut in Australia and New Zealand, and the Chicago Transit Authority pulled its adverts in April 2008, which led Take-Two to sue.

What are the GTA IV episodes?

Rockstar released two story expansions set in the same city at the same time. The Lost and Damned (February 2009) follows biker Johnny Klebitz, and The Ballad of Gay Tony (October 2009) follows Luis Lopez. Both were first Xbox 360 exclusives, then came to PS3 and Windows in April 2010 as Episodes from Liberty City. A Complete Edition with the base game and both episodes followed in October 2010. Since February 2017, the Xbox 360 version also runs on Xbox One.

The next main game, Grand Theft Auto V, moved the series back to San Andreas in 2013.