After releasing the trailer last month, Rockstar has now revealed further details about one of the most anticipated games of 2007, GTA IV. The protagonist is an Eastern European immigrant who goes by the name of Niko Bellic and has come to live the “American Dream”.
As the trailer promised, things are really different in the game. The pedestrians are far more realistic in GTA IV than in previous GTA games and sit on benches, smoke cigarettes, read books and generally act like any real pedestrian would in the middle of a street. Here are some of the important details of GTA IV:
The GTA 4 equivalent of the Statue of Liberty is called the Statue of Happiness, and DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is known as BOABO (Beneath the Offramp of the Algonquin Bridge Overpass).
In Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar have recreated 4 of the 5 boroughs in New York, as well as part of New Jersey. Broker is the GTA IV equivalent of Brooklyn, Manhattan is now called Algonquin, Queens is now Dukes, the Bronx is Bohan, and New Jersey is Alderney. The map is smaller than San Andreas, but considerably more detailed. No countryside or desert, we are led to believe.
In GTA 4, Rockstar is giving its players more freedom, more choice, and more sense of control over their destiny – the structure of GTA4’s storyline is quite different to it’s predecessors as it can be told in a number of different ways. You can talk to people in person, by cell phones, and there are a bunch of other ways of giving the player information. In general it’s a different experience, with new ways of interacting with the characters and the game world.
There are no planes in GTA IV because there is only one city, and Rockstar want the game to seem realistic. That means there will be no rollerblades, no unicycles, probably no jetpacks and indeed no planes. Rockstar are giving choice and variety, which feels right for the character. However, there will be motorbikes.
After an initial load sequence, the game will never load again. Not even during exterior-interior transitions (and vice versa).
Both versions of the game (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) will likely be identical, but the Xbox 360 version will have exclusive downloadable episodic [sizeable] content. Rockstar have now spent over 3 years developing the game, and Dan Houser compares the leap from GTA III to GTA IV, to the leap from GTA to GTA III.
GTA IV will have multiplayer, but it’s not going to be a massively multiplayer online game, says Dan Houser. They are trying to make something that is interesting, fun, progressive and which goes along nicely with the single-player game
It is not a big deal that GTA IV is not a MMOG as Rockstar can look forward to make GTA V (if they plan to make it) a massively multiplayer online game as by the time they release GTA V, there would be a proper infrastructure for cross-platform gaming.
Grand Theft Auto IV is due to be released in the USA on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 16th 2007, and then in the UK on October 19th 2007.
