Even relentless arch criminals like the protagonists in Grand Theft Auto like to listen to music while they drive around town looking for the next score.
One of the hallmarks of Rockstar’s series of open world games is a rocking soundtrack of officially licensed music players can tailor to their personal tastes.
However, those gamers still exploring the vast world of GTA 4 will soon lose access to their favourite playlists.
Believe it or not, it’s now a decade since the fourth major instalment landed on PC and console. That means the musical licenses acquired by Rockstar are expiring.
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Kotaku quotes an ‘industry source’ claiming that the game will lose “a lot” of music on April 29 2018, but couldn’t provide a list of tracks.
However, according to the same source, prior to the deletion, PS3 gamers will receive a prompt to download digital versions of the songs to keep them within the game.
It’s not clear how this will bet managed in terms of digital rights rules or whether Xbox 360 and PC users will also benefit from this.
Considering the long shelf life of the Grand Theft Auto series, this is likely to affect more gamers than would reasonably be expected with a ten year old game.
Rockstar is yet to officially comment on the report, but has suffered the wrath of gamers on this subject before.
For GTA: San Andreas a PC patch removed songs from the game after around a decade. On that occasion the gamers weren’t notified in advance.
It appears as if Rockstar may be adopting a different approach this time around. We’ll let you know if there’s anything official from the company.
Are you still playing GTA 4 after all these years? Let us know whether you receive a notification pertaining to music @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
