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Grand Theft Auto IV (also known as GTA IV and GTA 4) is a sandbox-style action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar Games. It will be the ninth title in the Grand Theft Auto series and the first in its fourth generation. Grand Theft Auto IV will be released worldwide (except Japan) on 29 April 2008 for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Exclusive Xbox 360 episodic packs are due for release in August via Xbox Live.

The game is set in a re-imagined universe, with little-to-no continuity with previous games. The setting is a redesigned Liberty City, based heavily on New York City, as well as New Jersey. The game follows Niko Bellic, an Eastern European who comes to the United States in search of the “American Dream”, only to find his cousin has lied to him about the wealth that would be waiting for him.

It is by far the best game of the series, which made its debut in 1997 and has since sold more than 70 million copies. Grand Theft Auto IV will retail for $60.

GTA IV is structured similarly to previous games in the series. The core game play consists of elements of a third-person shooter and a driving game, affording the player a large, open environment in which to move around. On foot, the player’s character is capable of walking, running, swimming, climbing and jumping, as well as utilizing weapons and basic hand to hand combat. Players can steal and drive a variety of vehicles, including automobiles, boats, helicopters, and motorcycles.

Niko Bellic is the player-controlled protagonist this time, and he is one of the most fully realized characters video games have yet produced. A veteran of the Balkan wars and a former human trafficker in the Adriatic, he arrives in Liberty City’s rendition of Brighton Beach at the start of the game to move in with his affable if naïve cousin Roman. Niko expects to find fortune and, just maybe, track down someone who betrayed him long ago. Over the course of the story line he discovers that revenge is not always what one expects.

Grand Theft Auto IV is such a simultaneously adoring and insightful take on modern America that it almost had to come from somewhere else. The game’s main production studio is in Edinburgh, and Rockstar’s leaders, the brothers Dan and Sam Houser, are British expatriates who moved to New York to indulge their fascination with urban American culture. Their success places them firmly among the distinguished cast of Britons from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards through Tina Brown who have flourished by identifying key elements of American culture, repackaging them for mass consumption and selling them back at a markup.