The Internet is hot again around Grand Theft Auto IV, but this time it’s not about the remaster or rumors about the game’s return. Players have reached a very early version of the game and have begun to dissect it, with new information emerging on various forums.
According to user entries, the game’s build was supposed to come from an Xbox 360 development kit that someone… bought at a sale for pennies. It sounds absurd, but it is stories like these that drive the entire “beta hunt”, a multi-year investigation by fans trying to discover how different GTA IV was at the production stage.
The community quickly started analyzing the content and it seems that there are a lot of differences. The speech includes: about changed character models (e.g. earlier versions of the characters’ faces), other visual effects or elements that never made it into the final game. This coincides with previous fan findings, as the beta included, among others: cut missions, vehicles or even entire mechanics that were ultimately abandoned.
Interestingly, the discussions also include specific tidbits, such as unused weapons, other animations or fragments of content previously visible only in trailers. Players point out that some of these elements were ready or close to completion, which only fuels questions: why did Rockstar decide to remove them?
The whole situation shows one thing. Even though GTA IV is old, it still manages to surprise, and if we are actually dealing with an early version of the game being leaked, modders and dataminers may have weeks (or months) of discovering the secrets of Liberty City that we were never supposed to see.
