Grand Theft Auto IV was received as a masterpiece in 2008 and then spent the next decade being quietly demoted, mostly because GTA 5 was faster, funnier and easier to like. That reassessment went too far. Coming to it fresh in 2026 — particularly with GTA 6 arriving in November — it holds up better than its reputation suggests.
What it does that no other GTA does
The writing
Niko Bellic is the only Grand Theft Auto protagonist with a genuinely coherent inner life. The game is about immigration, disappointment and the gap between what America promises and what it delivers, and it means it. GTA 5's satire is sharper but shallower; GTA 4 is the only entry that is actually sad.
The physics
This is the famous argument. GTA 4's cars have weight, body roll and momentum. They understeer. They feel like heavy objects being pushed around by an engine, and hitting something has consequences. GTA 5 made driving tighter and more arcade-like, and a large contingent of players have wanted the old handling back ever since.
The Euphoria physics for characters — NPCs stumbling, catching themselves, reacting to being clipped — is also more convincing than what came after.
Liberty City
Smaller and denser than Los Santos, with no countryside to speak of. Everything is city. For players who found GTA 5's Blaine County a lot of empty road, that focus is a feature.
What has aged badly
What works
- The best-written story in the series and by some distance the best protagonist
- The Episodes from Liberty City — The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony — are both excellent and are essential to the package
- Driving and character physics that a large part of the fanbase still prefers
- Dense, walkable, focused city design
What doesn't
- The friend and girlfriend activity system — being phoned to go bowling — is the most complained-about mechanic in the series' history
- Cover shooting is stiff and dated
- The colour palette is aggressively brown and grey, which was a 2008 fashion
- Mission checkpointing is unforgiving by modern standards
Which version to buy
| Platform | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Xbox 360 / Xbox One / Xbox Series | Best option. The Complete Edition disc plays across Xbox generations via backwards compatibility, with the Episodes included |
| PlayStation 3 | Fine, if you still have a PS3. The game is not backwards compatible on PS4 or PS5, which is the single biggest availability problem |
| PC | The Complete Edition on modern storefronts removed the Games for Windows Live dependency but also lost some licensed music from the original release. Playable, but not the definitive version |
The practical recommendation is an Xbox disc copy. They are abundant and cheap secondhand — check our used-games guide for what to inspect before buying.
Worth it before GTA 6?
If you have never played it, yes. It is a roughly 30-hour main story, it is cheap, and it is the entry that most directly informs what Rockstar is doing again in GTA 6 — a heavier, more consequence-driven, more character-focused crime story. That lineage runs GTA 4 to Red Dead Redemption 2 to GTA 6, and skips GTA 5.
For the wider run-up plan, see the 15-week plan and what to play while you wait.