GTA 4 cut content restored after 18 years, bringing back ferry transport and a playable Xbox 360 pre-release build: "Craziest leak I have ever seen"
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The god of the Xbox 360 smiled down upon a guy in Scotland this week and led him to buy a confirmed GTA 4 dev kit at a flea market, so that the rest of the world can profit by restoring all its axed content. And for this, we thank the god of the Xbox 360.
Dev kit buyer Jan – who tells Kotaku he isn't even really a big GTA fan, and he only handed over "a tenner" for the damn thing – uploaded the 2007-era GTA 4 beta build he found on the console online, and fans have been quick to shake off the dust and make a lot of it playable.
GTA 4’s leaked beta build has been restored and is now playable on Xbox 360.An early version of Roman’s wedding was found, featuring placeholder voiceover, animations and the director heard in the background.pic.twitter.com/YwwV2gzIchMarch 30, 2026
In fact, one fan who goes by the name Jorby has now managed to get the entire pre-release GTA 4 build working on Xbox 360 consoles by padding the incomplete leak with "some retail assets." (Related – GTA 4 technical director Obbe Vermeij observes on Twitter about the Rockstar dev kit that led to all this, "I don't know what happened to that 360 but it seems unlikely it was above board.")
Article continues belowYou know what they say, one man's trash is another man's GTA forum post. Another expert, Attramet, restored GTA 4's ferry transport system at the imposing Liberty Ferries, and now modern GTA 4 players can get shuttled around on Liberty City's gunky rivers like princesses returning home.
Liberty Ferries from the GTAIV beta build restored by AttrametSource:https://t.co/MLVSgQBcMp pic.twitter.com/hjs7a8OgioMarch 30, 2026
"This has to be craziest leak I have ever seen," one fan says on Twitter.
"Oh yeah," says another, joking that, "that mf that bought the dev kit is getting kidnapped by Rockstar."
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Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.
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