After disabling the option to buy Grand Theft Auto IV in January, Rockstar now say 2008’s open-world murder simulator will return to sale in March with a few changes. Microsoft’s awful Games For Windows Live technogubbins is being removed because it caused the trouble in the first place, and that’s great news. It seems some folks will also receive the expansions or base game for free too. Unfortunately, Rockstar are also removing GTA IV’s multiplayer mode and will temporarily disable several radio stations. A mixed crimebag.

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After 21 years as a Rockstar Games big cheese, Dan Houser will leave the company in March. He’s co-written almost every Rockstar game since 1999, including Grand Theft Auto from London through to V, Bully, Max Payne 3, and the Red Dead Redemptions. That’s made him a big influence on the tone of Rockstar’s games. I wonder how that might change once he’s moved on. Where he’s going and what he’ll do next, we don’t know. He can probably afford to eat pizza while watching Heat on loop the rest of his life, to be honest.

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Just in time to launch Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC, Rockstar announced their own game launcher for desktop. Despite having both Grand Theft Auto V and San Andreas available on the new digital storefront, Grand Theft Auto IV is still notably absent. Now it’s been delisted from Steam as well, though it doesn’t actually seem to be related to any grand plans Rockstar have for their own launcher.

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Just when the Epic Games Launcher seemed like it might have been the final salvo in the launcher wars, along come Rockstar Games with a launcher of their own. The imaginatively-named Rockstar Games Launcher lets you launch Rockstar Games games, and also buy them. Okay? And? Why would I want that? Well, Rockstar are hoping to tempt people to install it by initially offering 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as a freebie.

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I felt the rise of that old familiar feeling. I hated it. I welcomed it. We’re going back to Max Payne 2. With Control out now and putting Remedy back on the map, we’re diving into their 2003 hit, and back into a world of slow-motion gunplay, over-the-top twirling reloads and mods absolutely obsessed with The Matrix and early 2000s action movie soundtracks. In fairness, the Max Payne 2 mod scene has been largely stagnant for the past few years, but that doesn’t mean dead. Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting scrapes Max and pals have shot themselves out of.

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As much fun as we have with our virtual bank-heists, car-chases and random muggings, music licensing seems like a far more lucrative racket. Due to expensive, time-limited music licenses expiring, Grand Theft Auto IV developers Rockstar were recently faced with either pulling the game from sale, paying for a license renewal, or removing a good chunk of its famed soundtrack. Today, a small patch rolled out across multiple platforms, removing the now-unlicensed music tracks and it looks like the damage done may be greater than expected.

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Rockstar have confirmed that they need to cut a number of songs from Grand Theft Auto IV due to music licenses expiring, though they will shuffle in new songs to replace at least some. Probably expect a new patch to cut the old and whack in the new. The Russian pop station Vladivostok FM will take the brunt of the cuts, which will also affect GTA 4’s Episodes From Liberty City standalone expansions. Rockstar have needed to do this with GTA before and it’s still weird to cut up old copies of games, but at least this time they’re taping it back together afterwards. (more…)

Rockstar s first foray into the uneven world of virtual reality isn t a GTA spin-off, or a brand new game, but instead VR version of Rockstar and Team Bondi’s 2011 detective romp, L.A. Noire [official site]. While the current generation of consoles are getting the whole game with added 4K support and the like, over on PC we’re in for a trimmed-down version redone as a Vive exclusive. (more…)

The modding project creating a tool to import Liberty City from Grand Theft Auto IV into GTA V has, sadly, shut down. It was the work of the team behind unofficial modding tool OpenIV [official site] but, after the fuss which saw the owners of GTA briefly shut down OpenIV with legal threats before making peace, they now say they can’t make it. Such a tool would be against the new Rockstar modding policy, see. But hey, at least OpenIV is back and its development will continue. … [visit site to read more]

Take-Two’s lawyers have allegedly shut down OpenIV, one of the main tools for modding Grand Theft Auto IV and V. The OpenIV team say they’ve received a ‘cease and desist’ letter from The Suits saying that OpenIV lets people bypass security features and modify the game, which violates Take-Two’s rights and must be stopped. And so, the team have announced they’ll stop distributing the tool. I’m sure it’ll still float around the Internet unofficially, but this is a terrible loss. … [visit site to read more]