author: Luc
It's Always Grim In Liberty City. Let’s Take a Look Back at Grand Theft Auto IV – The Most Serious Game in the GTA Series
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In the final sequences, Rockstar managed to incorporate a few small tidbits that further deepened the already gloomy atmosphere, even though they had an ironic meaning. Of course, this refers to the place where we exact our final revenge on Dimitri or Pegorino. Given what had just transpired, the name Happiness Island is the last thing that would fit the context, and its absurdity is highlighted by Roman or Little Jacob's words. When committing subsequent murders, we hear: "It's over, you won". In fact, Niko fulfilled his American Dream of a great fortune and independence, but along the way he lost everything that really matters in life. It’s hardly a "victory".
No matter what we choose, shortly after the events unravel, Niko decides to make one last attempt to sever the ties with his old life and find the good lying within him. Unfortunately, our past decisions have a funny way of catching up with us, and eventually we have to deal with the consequences of our actions. It is no different here – depending on the side we had chosen before, we lose either Roman or Kate, which brings the hero back to the place from which he so desperately tried to escape. We follow the murderer and finally kill him, once again exacting an empty vengeance, which is the only way to solve problems that Bellic knows. When the player realizes that this story is simply a series of brutal and tragic events that trigger one another, and our antihero stepped on this path willingly, thus condemning himself to "eternal" suffering, it turns out that in the case of GTA IV we are dealing with one of the most dark themes in the history of this type of games.
Was it a good decision on the part of Rockstar to move away from the light themes and choose such a heavy atmosphere instead? The fact that the fifth installment of the series marked the return to a slightly more crazy and colorful setting seems meaningful in this context. The story was without a doubt captivating and multi-layered, but in fact many players found it dissatisfying – after all, what they expected of Grand Theft Auto was a ton of fun and not the serious reflection on the meaning of life or the dark plot twists. GTA V also managed to smuggle in content of this kind, but it shown in a parody style and in no way compared with what its predecessor offered. Let's add the level of detail, which set the bar for other sandbox productions so high that we had to wait until the premiere of GTA V to get something equally polished up. Whether you enjoyed Niko's story is a matter of taste, but we cannot deny that this serious narrative has left its mark on the gamers' community and pop culture alike. At the same time, it probably constituted the deepest, most tragic and ambitious story we've ever encountered not only in the Grand Theft Auto series, but in the entire genre as well. Such things can be said only about the top-notch productions.
