Before GTA Online, GTA 4 Free Mode Was The Best Playground

For over a decade, Grand Theft Auto 5 has consistently topped sales charts, and its staying power is largely attributed to the eternally popular GTA Online. The ever-evolving multiplayer component of GTA V is a massive force in its own right, and for good reason. But while I had my fun dabbling with the expansive GTA Online, nostalgia for its online predecessor in 2008’s Grand Theft Auto 4 has a hold on me.

Online multiplayer in GTA 4 wasn’t the main selling point for the Xbox 360 and PS3 game, nor was it what stood out the most to players. Even still, I lost more hours to GTA 4’s online mode than any other 360-era game--specifically in the game’s Free Mode.

GTA 4 had run-of-the-mill modes like Team Deathmatch and races, but Free Mode came with zero objectives to accomplish. Well, except for just having a lot of fun. The entirety of Liberty City’s sandbox was open for up to 16 players to do whatever the hell they wanted. With few guardrails and the lack of any guidance, an entire in-game city became the biggest playground in video games at the time.

I had the freedom to accomplish the same chaos and havoc I could as Niko Bellic in the single-player mode, but with a whole party of friends. I linked up with two high-school buddies on a near-nightly basis to hit up the (virtual) town, and oh, the adventures we went on together.

We explored the crevices of Liberty City, experimenting with viral glitches like the infamous swing set. We grew familiar with all of the notable weapon and vehicle spawns, especially the rocket launchers and helicopters. And it took little time for GTA 4 nights to devolve into pandemonium, often blowing each other up (and ourselves) just for laughs.

Eventually, our sessions became escalating self-imposed “what if?” missions. What if we could stage a drive-by shooting with an ambulance or bus? What if we teamed up to orchestrate a massive highway pile-up by causing a chain reaction with grenades and rockets? What if we nabbed the helicopter and took down that one annoying random player using its propellers?

Yes, those other players were pesky, but interacting with these anonymous participants eventually became the basis for fun in every Free Mode session. Those other usernames quickly became familiar, and as I went back and forth with other players, griefing each other, those encounters would escalate too. Eventually, I would find myself racing them to the airport to steal the most prolific helicopter on the map, and whether I successfully riddled them with bullets from the air or crashed spectacularly in a futile attempt to off them, any outcome was exciting and hilarious.

It was troll or be trolled (or both, in most cases) in GTA 4 Free Mode. After sucker-punching another player, you’ll probably end up getting flattened by a different random player recklessly driving a truck on the sidewalk. Then, you’ll respawn in a random street--only to be sniped by the guy you had just sucker-punched minutes before.

Today, GTA Online is synonymous with role-playing, and the systems and components behind GTA RP are far more elaborate than anything GTA 4 offered. Despite lacking the tools and structure, GTA 4’s Free Mode still managed to let players craft their own narratives, even just in their own minds. There may have been no real story behind my interactions with these players, but I still felt a drive. I had created my own narratives, with rivalries and goals, and hopefully, a fitting conclusion before I had to shut my 360 off for the night.

GTA Online also allows players to freely roam the map, and while I’m sure Los Santos provides very similar opportunities for wreaking havoc, I don’t have as strong an affinity for GTA’s current online offerings. A large part of that is for personal reasons--my old GTA 4 “gang” has long been defunct, so I found very few excuses to play GTA 5 online. I think another component for me is that GTA Online has so much complexity and far too many options for me, though I hope that open-ended modes remain in style for the game’s massive playerbase.

There’s no official word on what an online mode for GTA 6 could include, and I imagine that such a mode would try to carry on what GTA Online has successfully continued for over a decade. But looking back, I yearn for the sheer, unstructured simplicity that GTA 4 Free Mode provided. Rockstar Games is creating some of the most elaborate sandboxes in video gaming ever--so let’s play in the sand.