GTA 4 was released back in 2008. And I clearly remember the times when all teenagers – including me – spent hours at that time playing this game. For many today, GTA 5 and Fortnite are modern and interesting. Players are offered the best physics, the best graphics and all the best, but back in 2008, GTA 4 seemed like a revolutionary product with physics that no other game could offer at that time. Against the backdrop of GTA San Andreas, released in 2005, GTA 4 seemed a completely different level.
When is GTA 4 coming to Android?
Today, the difference between a modern game in 2020 and GTA 4 is not as obvious as the difference between GTA San Andreas and GTA 4. Even then, we were offered the physics engine of Euphoria. After that, Rockstar released GTA 5 with a different engine, which is much worse than “euphoria”.
This leap between San Andreas and GTA 4 makes me wonder when we will finally be able to see GTA 4 on smartphones. San Andreas appeared on iOS in 2013. The difference between going to PC and Android is 8 years. Between San Andreas and GTA 4 there are 4 years difference. From here, in theory, it follows that we could expect the release of GTA 4 on mobile devices in 2017, but it's 2020, and it's still not there.
The reason is that in 2008 GTA 4 was very poorly optimized and did not work well on all PCs. Until now, not every computer can pull this game in 60 frames. Probably, Rockstar understands that porting the Rage engine for mobile devices is too complex a process that will not pay off in the future. In addition, GTA 4 itself is too large a product to simply take and port it: the game even has its own internal Internet. Imagine how much will need to be transferred to mobile devices?
In addition, everything also depends on the size. On PC, GTA 4 weighs 16 GB, and on consoles about 8 GB. Today these numbers seem too large, but somewhere in 1-2 years, when the use of 256 GB of memory becomes the norm in the base model, then we can already talk about porting the game to Android. Not every user is ready to allocate so much space to the game today, because the minimal modifications of budget phones offer only 64 GB of internal memory.
There is another important point, which is how relevant will GTA in general be in 1-2 years, when technically smartphones will be able to support it? The problem is that modern players on smartphones are not very interested in GTA 4 on its own. The game will be an interesting option for those who want to enjoy the game. When GTA 3 appeared on smartphones, everyone immediately started playing it, because at that time there was simply no high-quality open-world game on phones. And the GTA concept was still popular. Today, in my opinion, GTA has outlived its usefulness a little. For example, I would rather play PUBG than GTA 4, simply because PUBG is more fun to play on smartphones. If we take GTA, then the concept itself is rather boring, and the controls will probably be the same as in GTA San Andreas, and this is not very convenient. Not so long ago, by the way, some craftsmen released their GTA 5 on Android.
What's the bottom line? In my opinion, GTA 4 on Android and iOS will appear in two years at best. At worst, we will never see new parts at all, due to the concept that has lost its freshness, inconvenient management, and, probably, weak sales, which the old parts ported to Android faced. In 2016, Rockstar cut the prices of all mobile ports by 40%, which clearly indicates weak interest, and today – after 4 years – there are probably even fewer purchases.
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