More than 18 years after Grand Theft Auto IV launched, an early development build has revealed that Rockstar North experimented with zombie content while creating the game. The November 2007 build was discovered on an Xbox 360 development kit bought for just £5 at a car boot sale in Edinburgh, only months before GTA IV released in April 2008.
Among the huge collection of unfinished and unused content were assets seemingly connected to a zombie prototype. Players digging through the build discovered zombie-related animations, special pickups, bloody police bodies and a blood-covered hospital gurney, suggesting Rockstar had at least experimented with an undead-themed mode during development.
However, it doesn’t appear that GTA IV was ever seriously planned to launch with a complete zombie mode. Former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij said he didn’t remember zombies being a significant part of GTA IV’s development, explaining that artists regularly experimented with zombie ideas and suggesting this particular concept probably didn’t progress very far.
Whatever Rockstar originally had in mind, the discovery gives fans an interesting glimpse at ideas being tested behind the scenes during GTA IV’s development. Rockstar would eventually embrace the undead properly with Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare in 2010, but it now appears Liberty City may have been one of the places where the studio experimented with zombies years earlier.