The GTA 4 story is "really dark" because Rockstar's co-founder was "single and miserable" while making it: "We constantly thought we may be shut down"

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The Hot Coffee scandal did a number on Dan Houser

GTA 4
(Image credit: Rockstar)

GTA 4 is a noticeably darker and more dour game than anything the series had put out before or since, but a lot of that stemmed from Dan Houser's life at the time.

Courtesy of the Lex Fridman podcast, the Rockstar Games' co-founder and GTA 4's lead writer gave a 'life imitates art' answer to the question of why the open-world hit felt so sombre. "I had been living in New York for a few years, and wasn't sure if I was happy," he recalled of the period where he was writing Niko Bellic's story.

Kaan Serin
Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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