Grand Theft Auto 4 - On This Day

At the beginning of the century, three years apart, we got three games of the GTA series. San Andreas was followed by a break that lasted four years, and the main reason for such a break was technical - the series was supposed to make the transition to a new generation of consoles. The Rockstar team saw this as an opportunity to advance the physics and animation segments based on the RAGE engine that had its debut title in Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis. Two years after that game, on this very day, Grand Theft Auto 4 for the then PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles followed.

GTA 4 took us back to Liberty City, a virtual version of New York in a more realistic view than ever before. The map in the game was smaller than the previous San Andreas, but there were fewer empty spaces and more buildings that we could enter, and so on.

We played the role of immigrant Niko Bellic, a character who was born in this area. Rockstar has never explicitly said where Niko is from. In any case, Niko came to Liberty City with his cousin Roman, who promised him a villa and wealth. However, it turned out that the path to that wealth is very thorny and difficult for Niko Bellic.

GTA 4 was played for the most part as in previous games in the series. The difference was that the shooting was more based on the use of the shelter, and the possibilities of developing character skills as in San Andreas were left out. The game instead gained several side activities and opportunities. No one could go bowling, a strip club, or anything like that. He could get behind the wheel drunk, but he could also surf the Internet in search of business opportunities.

A good part of the interactions Niko arranged using a mobile phone which was a novelty for the GTA series. With the help of mobile phones, there was also online multiplayer in which races, deathmatch modes, etc. could be played.


GTA 4 was one of the biggest games of the last decade. It employed more than a thousand people, and the production itself reportedly cost over $ 100 million. The effort paid off because the game earned five times as much in the first week of sales alone. The PC version followed half a year later, and by 2013 GTA 4 had been played more than 25 million players.

A total of two extensions were launched for the game, which was later released and separately as Episodes From Liberty City. We have never seen Niko Belić's adventures in the remastered edition, but the Xbox 360 version became compatible with the Xbox One console two years ago and runs at 60 frames per second on the Xbox Series X and S consoles.