Grand Theft Auto IV
Rockstar North · Shooter, Racing, Action
Overview
Grand Theft Auto IV is an action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the eleventh title in the Grand Theft Auto series, and the first main entry since 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on-foot or by vehicle. Throughout the single-player mode, players play as Niko Bellic. An online multiplayer mode is included with the game, allowing up to 32 players to engage in both co-operative and competitive gameplay in a recreation of the single-player setting. Two expansion packs were later released for the game, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, which both feature new plots that are interconnected with the main Grand Theft Auto IV storyline, and follow new protagonists.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT10,000 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Players love GTA IV for its story and its city. The story or plot comes up in 43% of the longer reviews, and the tone is warm: players describe a dark, grounded immigrant story and still quote characters like Roman, Little Jacob and Brucie. Praise also goes to Liberty City's atmosphere and detail, the Euphoria ragdoll physics, and the two bundled Episodes from Liberty City (The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony). Driving and GTA V comparisons divide people. Some love the heavy cars and call IV the better game, while others find the handling boat-like and prefer V's arcade feel.
Players' main complaint is the PC version. 42% of the longer reviews mention technical trouble (port quality, stutter, crashes, bugs), and 29% bring up mods, mostly the community patch FusionFix, which some call mandatory. The helicopter bug in the final mission and other breakage at high framerates come up often. The Rockstar Games Launcher and its account requirement push some players to refund in their first hours, and a smaller group misses the radio songs and multiplayer that they say the Complete Edition no longer has. In this slice 86.7% of reviews recommend the game, some with the advice to install fixes before starting.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Niko's story and the cast around himHigh
43% of the longer reviews bring up the story or plot, and 17% name Niko himself. Praise centres on the darker, grounded tone. Players describe a war veteran chasing the "American Dream" and finding cockroaches, debt and betrayal, and some call it the series' most mature or emotional story. "Niko Bellic is easily one of the most memorable protagonists Rockstar has ever created," one review says. The supporting cast gets similar love, with Roman named most often, then Little Jacob, Brucie and Packie, and some reviews discuss the endings and choices at length.
A far smaller group calls the story overrated or slow, and a few argue the redemption arc rings hollow when "you have spend literally at least 80% of the game being a no questions asked hitman." Others say the second half loses focus with subplots the base game never resolves (the expansions tie some of them up). Story praise turns up in negative reviews too, from players who gave up over bugs or the port but still call the story great.
Liberty City's atmosphere and detailHigh
Liberty City, its atmosphere or its small details come up in 22% of the longer reviews. Players single out NPCs who react to rain and weather, pedestrians who cling to a car you steal, a working in-game internet, TV and comedy clubs, and the subway and taxis. "Liberty City is one of the most detailed and immersive open worlds and nearly 20 years later still beats out most contemporaries," one player writes. The downside some raise is that the city has little to spend money on and not many repeatable side activities once the story ends, which a few call empty.
Euphoria physics and ragdollsHigh
The physics, Euphoria or the ragdolls come up in 16% of the longer reviews, almost always with praise. Players enjoy enemies stumbling and limping when shot, bodies tumbling down stairs, and crashes that throw Niko through the windscreen, and several say the physics beat GTA V's. "Shoot someone in the leg, he limps off holding it like it is your fault," as one review puts it. The few complaints are about physics glitching out, which players tie to the port's framerate problems.
Two full expansions in the boxHigh
Players value getting The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony bundled at no extra cost (18% of the longer reviews mention the DLC), and several call them standalone-quality campaigns. The Ballad of Gay Tony is named more often and gets the warmer reception: players praise Luis Lopez, the brighter tone and the new weapons and vehicles. One player says "I really liked TBoGT. Maybe even more than the base game." The Lost and Damned divides people. Fans of biker stories enjoy Johnny and the gang wars, while others call it short, gloomy and hampered by bike handling: "All of the characters are unlikable, the story was uninteresting, luckily it's short to blast through." A few players also note that the expansions add the mid-mission checkpoints the base game lacks.
Radio, soundtrack and sound designMedium
The radio, the music or the sound come up in 10% of the longer reviews, often along with the satirical talk shows and spoof adverts. Stations like Vladivostok FM and Massive B get name-checked, and a few call it the best soundtrack in the series. Some of that praise comes with a caveat about songs missing from this edition (see below), and one player who restored the original radio still found over half of it poor.
Cheap on sale for a lot of gameMedium
Players who bought it on discount call the base game plus two campaigns a good deal for the money. Others say they would only buy it on sale, and a few say they wouldn't pay more than a sale price for the port as it stands.
Where players are split
Heavy driving and vehicle handlingHigh
Driving comes up in 23% of the longer reviews, and players disagree about it. Fans love the weight: cars roll, slide and feel different from one another, and several say the skill it takes is the point. "The cars drive like wet sofas. You'll hate it, then you'll miss it," one fan writes. Critics find the brakes and grip unrealistic, the traffic heavy and the motorcycles close to unusable: "Real vehicles do not slide like the road is butter when you lightly tap the brake." Bikes take the most criticism, especially in The Lost and Damned, and some players link sliding wheels to high framerates. Some players say the handling takes getting used to and then clicks.
Comparisons with GTA VHigh
GTA V comes up in 19% of the longer reviews. Fans of IV prefer it for its story, physics, car damage and grimy city, and 204 reviews in the slice say IV is "better than GTA V" (or "than V"). Players who prefer V point to its responsive controls, colourful setting, mission variety and more to do, and several who started with V find IV slow and dated. A few long reviews also rank IV below San Andreas for freedom and customisation.
Combat and gunplayMedium
Combat comes up in 10% of the longer reviews. Some players call the cover shooting weighty and satisfying for its age, and a few compare it to Max Payne. Others find the auto-aim clumsy, the fist fighting poor and enemies too tanky, and say Niko feels slow to control on foot.
The friend calls and bowlingLow
"Let's go bowling" is the reviews' running joke, and bowling comes up in 4% of all reviews, mostly with affection. When players discuss the friendship system seriously, some call the hangouts humanising and others say the constant calls get old: "Constant phone calls asking if you want to go bowling, drink, or play darts get old pretty quickly."
The grey, washed-out lookLow
A small group of reviews talk about the muted colour palette. Some say it suits the bleak story, others find it dull to look at after Vice City or GTA V.
What frustrates players
A rough PC port: stutter, crashes and bugsHigh
Technical problems come up in 42% of the longer reviews, and 79% of the longer negative reviews mention the port, performance, bugs, mods or the launcher. Players report stutter and frame drops even on strong hardware, crashes and freezes, cutscenes that lag or play in slow motion, cameras that zoom into walls during cutscenes, lost progress and mission-breaking glitches. Many positive reviews list the same problems and recommend the game anyway; one sums it up as "Great game, but terrible PC port." A minority report no issues on a decent PC and push back on the negativity.
Community fixes do the work, led by FusionFixHigh
29% of the longer reviews bring up mods, and 16% name FusionFix specifically. Some make it part of the recommendation: "Simply install the Fusionfix mod and enjoy one of the best entries in the franchise." Others name Gillian's mod pack, DXVK, radio restorers and frame limiters, and point newcomers to Steam guides and PCGamingWiki. Players complain that this is needed at all, and for those who don't want to tinker it is a dealbreaker. A few report that even with FusionFix they still hit crashes, and some find modding painful in its own right.
The final mission and high-framerate breakageMedium
The final mission or the helicopter comes up in 10% of the longer reviews, often alongside talk of capping the framerate. Players describe being unable to climb into the helicopter in the last mission no matter how fast they press the key, and having to cap the game to 30 or 60 FPS (or install FusionFix) to finish. "The final mission is still broken after 12 years," one player writes. Similar framerate-tied failures are reported in other missions, minigames and quick-time events. The complaint comes mostly from players near the end of the story, and some negative reviews that call it a good game say the bug left them unable to finish it.
Rockstar Games Launcher and account sign-inMedium
11% of the longer reviews and 19% of all negative reviews mention the Rockstar Games Launcher, Social Club or a Rockstar account. Players object to a mandatory login for a single-player game, long launch times, being unable to save when sign-in fails, lost or unrecoverable accounts, and the launcher not playing well on Steam Deck or Linux. "Forcing a Social Club connection on a single-player game and relying on a broken system to do it is completely unacceptable," one reviewer writes. Several of these reviews end in refunds. The complaint comes mostly from people who have barely started, and it is far more common in reviews written in the first two hours than in later ones.
Repetitive missions and no checkpointsMedium
Repetitive missions or missing checkpoints draw complaints in 6% of the longer reviews. Players describe the base game's structure as "drive here and kill a bunch of guys", with long drives to and from each job, and say failing late in a mission means redoing the whole thing: "Failing a mission right at the end means redoing the entire drive and setup from scratch every single time, which gets incredibly tedious." A few defenders say the missions improve after the first half and point to set pieces like the Three Leaf Clover bank heist.
Cut radio songs and multiplayerLow
Missing radio tracks or multiplayer come up in 4% of the longer reviews. Players describe the soundtrack as "gutted" by expired licences and miss the old free-roam multiplayer, and several downgrade the game or use a radio restoration mod to get the songs back.
Controls and keybindsLow
A small group report keybinds that won't save, helicopters that need a numpad, and controller quirks, and one player insists on a controller with pressure-sensitive triggers for driving.
3. The player conversation
The reviews are affectionate and nostalgic. Some come from people who played on PS3 or Xbox 360 and returned on PC, a few as a replay before GTA VI, and short reviews are full of memes about Roman, bowling and "yellow car". Negative reviews mostly go after the port, bugs, mods and the launcher rather than the game's design. On one side are people who accept the port's problems, fix them with mods and recommend the game; on the other, people who think a game this old shouldn't need fixing and vote no even while praising the story. A smaller group of skeptics, often players who came from GTA V or the 3D-era games, find it slow, repetitive and overrated.
Who raises what follows how far into the game a player is. Reviews written in the first two hours lean toward the launcher, sign-in and getting the game to run at all. Further in, the conversation turns to the story, the driving and the stutter, and by the end of the campaign it moves to the final mission's helicopter bug, mission design and the two expansions, which come up far more often in reviews written after 25 hours than in earlier ones. Within this slice the weekly positive share stays in a narrow band, between 81% and 91% in every week with more than 100 reviews, with no sign of a shift.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix the high-framerate bugs, starting with the final mission. The helicopter in the last mission and other framerate-tied failures stop players from finishing the story, and some negative reviews that otherwise praise the game cite them.
- Bring the port's stability up to FusionFix's level. Stutter, crashes, cutscene camera bugs and frame drops are the most frequent complaint, and players point to a free community mod that fixes what the official version doesn't.
- Make the Rockstar launcher and account optional for this single-player game, or at least reliable. New players run into login failures, saves blocked by sign-in and lost accounts in their first hours, and some of them refund.
- Add an official framerate limiter. Players are capping FPS through outside tools or mods just to get through missions, bikes and minigames.
- Add mid-mission checkpoints to the base game. A few players point out that the expansions already have them, and others name the long replays after a late failure as a reason the base game wore them down.
- Restore the removed radio tracks and offer a way back into multiplayer. A few players call the Complete Edition's soundtrack gutted and miss the free-roam multiplayer, and some downgrade the game to get them back.
- Fix keybinding and vehicle control issues on keyboard. Players report keybinds that don't stick and helicopters that need a numpad.
