Grand Theft Auto IV

GTA IV holds a special place among open-world games. Its story is deep, the characters are compelling, and Liberty City’s atmosphere is amazing. I definitely recommend buying and playing it! I started this year on my Steam Deck, and it runs really well with no FPS issues. I just finished the story for the first time in 2025, and even though the game is quite old, it’s still incredible.

“The American Dream comes with a body count.”
This is Rockstar’s most mature, most honest game. There’s no Vinewood, no satire. Just Liberty City, dark and cold, pulsing with corruption and concrete.
Niko Bellic isn’t flashy. He’s haunted. A war veteran trying to wash off blood with more blood. The story is heavy, the weight of consequence never lets up. Choices sting. Death has meaning. You feel the loneliness in every call Roman makes.
The city feels alive but suffocating. Grit replaces glamour.
The radio, the voice acting, the physics, It's unreal. Car chases hurt, shootouts feel raw, and friendships? They matter here.
It’s a tragedy disguised as a sandbox.
And it’s one of the best stories ever told in gaming.

which ape at rockstars HQ thought it would be a good idea that you need to download rockstars launcher just to play a game from 2008?

FusionFix actually makes GTAIV playable.. I’ve tried to get this PC port to run properly since 2014. Major improvement to performance & visuals. The game doesn’t crash anymore, consistent fps- nostalgia rekindled

First of all, this PC port of GTA IV is trash. First Generation RAGE engine is fundamentally broken on modern PCs and requires a lot of troubleshooting and mods to get it to be playable. The modding community recently solved this game. Follow Gillian's Modding Guide for GTA IV to save your sanity. FusionFix and DVXK vulkan mod fixes most issues for most people.
EDIT: Another tip; GTA IV breaks at high FPS. Lock your FPS to 60 and you can use Lossless Scaling to play the game at a stable and smooth 144fps or more.
GTA IV as a game is considered one of the best games of all time for a reason. For the time it was a mind blowing leap in graphics and in physics, and it still holds up in 2026. It's insane that it ran on 512mb of GDDR3 on an Xbox 360 and the fact that it was only in development for 4 years. There is an incredible amount of detail in this game that rivals RDR2. As an example, you can steal an ice cream truck and it has different songs you can play like a police siren. The story and characters are the best rockstar story along with Red Dead Redemption.
I don't care what anybody says, the driving in GTA IV is the best to me. Every car has different handling and weight to them, going fast and making a sharp turn can make you lose control of your vehicle, it's very realistic and satisfying. Pulling off a drift in this game is the best feeling. Also the car damage/deformation system is MUCH MUCH better than V. Cars actually bend out of shape and take damage if hit really hard, they blow up easier, and it's harder to drive a broken car because it reduces your speed and your ability to turn. It feels like Rockstar tuned back the physics and the car damage physics to streamline GTA online. GTA 4 is just a really fun game in general because of these systems.
There are so many interiors in the game that you can just explore. You can go to an internet cafe, go bowling, go play pool, go eat some food to restore your health at a restaurant. it makes the city feel more alive unlike GTA V with 0 overworld interiors, 0 food vendors. You can literally go into the hospital. A lot of props are destructible as well. It doesn't feel like there is any wasted space in the city. I also swear that the pedestrians behaviors in GTA 4 are much smarter over 5, each type of ped has their own personality, every single pedestrian and cars don't run and vanish and turn into a ghost town when you shoot somebody so you can go to another street and jack a car to get away. Female peds actually fight back too.
The physics in the game are over the top but crazy fun to play around with. Euphoria's implementation in this game is still top tier and never makes the game boring, and I wish more games used NaturalMotion's Euphoria. Peds don't have a default dying animation so every single gunfight is different. In fact, most peds will survive getting shot and try to get up and limp away to safety. A lot of this is just simply missing from V.
GTA 4 is the best singleplayer Grand Theft Auto. I hope that GTA 6 brings back some of the charm that made GTA 4 so great.

I hit a car with my motorcycle and got launched all the way to jupiter.

I have stayed away from purchasing this even when on sale because of all the reviews saying you need this or that to get the game to run properly, and you should follow all these guides, and I did not want to deal with the hassle...
Finally, I relented for $6, installed, started to bring up the guides and mods and etc., but then I thought: "Screw it. I'm just going to try and run it first and see what happens."
Lo and behold, I'm hours into the game at this point and there hasn't been a single issue. What the hell? Running with highest settings, 2160p, mostly consistent 60 fps (v-sync). Am I lucky? Or are the issues overblown? Not sure, and YMMV.
Of course, I could have issues later, or issues with the expansions, but right now everything is fine, and I've played for ten hours.
Hope this helps.