GTA 4 Beta Leak: Ferry, Zombies, and More

Over the past few years, fans of Rockstar Games have closely followed leaks of early versions of many of the company’s titles. The only major exception seemed to be GTA 4 — until this weekend.

At a car boot sale in Edinburgh, user janmatant managed to buy an Xbox 360 dev kit for just £5, and it turned out to contain a beta build of Grand Theft Auto IV dated November 23, 2007 — five months before the game’s official release. How such a valuable artifact from Rockstar North ended up there remains a mystery. There are rumors that it may previously have been sold on eBay. Either way, what truly matters is what was found inside.

A true treasure trove weighing in at 127 GB. Roughly 95% of the files are intact. The community believes there is a real chance of making the build fully playable. For now, models are gradually being extracted from it, and players are still assessing just how different this version was from the final release.