GoKawiilYesterday, on GTAForums, user MGGames100 posted a message saying, "something big has dropped," only for MapleEllie to respond with a link to a 118 GB archive for a dev build of GTA IV that appeared out of nowhere. What has since followed is one of the biggest info dumps in the history of the "Grand Theft Auto IV Beta Hunt" collective, and it was all possible thanks to an unassuming Xbox 360 devkit.
The story starts with user "janmatant" who apparently went to a random car boot sale in Edinburgh and purchased an old Xbox 360 for just $5. From the pictures, we can tell it's a revised model based on the original "fat" design from 2005, but with an updated motherboard, likely from the Xbox 360 Arcade era. Anyhow, the important bit is the "Rockstart North Ltd." asset tag, which shows this console belonged to the company.
(Image credit: janmatant on GTAForums)
If that wasn't enough confirmation, the back of the console says, "Xbox 360 XDK," and it runs Xshell, an operating system that was only issued to developers. This devkit came with a 120 GB hard drive, which only contained one game — Grand Theft Auto IV. It's a pre-release version of GTA IV from November 2007, just a few months before the game's official launch. Hence, it includes a bunch of stuff that never made it into the final cut or was changed for official release.
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One of the biggest discoveries were assets for the ferries that were shown in trailers (and appear in cutscenes) but are otherwise unusable in the game. You can't get on these ships since the game focuses on car and taxi travel on the basis of its grounded storytelling. Speaking of which, people found out that about half of the radio stations are completely different from the release version, featuring different songs.
(Image credit: HeySlickThatsMe / Lukakion on GTAForums)
The final version of GTA IV also omitted the revolver, and over the years modders have found leftover assets for it in the game, but it hasn't been seen in this version so far. There's a silenced pistol included in this build, along with some other unused weapons, lots of unfinished animations for them, and some audio placeholders. People have found beta NPCs and an early model for Michelle, too, which looks quite creepy.
Speaking of creepy, there was apparently a zombies mode cut from the game that's been the stuff of legends for years. There's no official confirmation on this, but the dev build sheds some light on the matter as it includes assets such as hospital beds referencing zombies. There are also early versions of zombie models in the files along with some animations.
(Image credit: HeySlickThatsMe / Lukakion on GTAForums)
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