After 17 years, the mystery of GTA 4's missing ferries has been solved by one of the original developers: "They were more trouble than they were worth"
Oct. 9, 2024The classic open-world game still has a few secrets left to reveal
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In March 2007, Rockstar revealed the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto 4, which prominently featured a boat docking at a ferry terminal. When the actual game launched a year later, the terminal was still there, but the ferries themselves were nowhere to be found. Fans have wondered for years why they were cut from the final game, and now one of the open-world game’s original developers has revealed the answer.
“It wasn’t really because of performance,” former Rockstar technical director Obbe Vermeij reveals onTwitter. “It’s more that they were causing other issues with physics (cars sitting on a boat). As well as people queuing and getting on and off. They were more trouble than they were worth.”
The Liberty Ferry Terminal first appeared in the “Things Will Be Different” teaser trailer that introduced the world to GTA 4, and it got a fair amount of notice as one of the few concretethingsanybody had seen of the game. It’s not as if the cut content caused any notable backlash at the time, but the mystery has caught a fair bit of attention over the years.
And now with Vermeij’s comments, the mystery is all solved. He’s been putting to rest all kinds of long-standing GTA mysteries in recent years, explaining the"embarrassing" bug behind the infamous plane crashes in San Andreas, and revealing thenature of the mysterious GTA 3 multiplayer modethat was cut early in development.
WithGTA 6on the horizon, Vermeij reckonsit’ll sell “for 10+ years,” and because “there is no competition” Rockstar is “not going to release the game until they’re 100% happy with it.”
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