A modder is quietly building the definitive way to replay Grand Theft Auto IV and it lets you play through all three protagonists at once. Joey, who goes by @skireddv2, is developing a mod that lets you switch on the fly between Niko Bellic, Johnny Klebitz, and Luis Lopez, Grand Theft Auto V-style, and play the base game and both expansions as a single, chronological story. His goal is to make it the best way to revisit Liberty City and GTA IV before Grand Theft Auto VI arrives.
The switching works just like in GTA V. Hop from one lead to another, and the camera pulls out, flies across wherever the other is, and drops you into whoever you picked, mid-action. The characters you leave behind carry on without you, driving off or wandering the streets where you left them, each keeping their own health, weapons, and vehicles. This isn't the first "switch" mod for the 2008 title, but it stands out because of everything built around it.
Instead of three separate campaigns, the mod threads every mission into one timeline. You play them in the order the stories actually happen, with characters unlocking as their arcs begin. Luis, from The Ballad of Gay Tony, does not appear until after the "Three Leaf Clover" bank heist, the exact moment his story crosses Niko's in the original games. You don't even have full control over the switch, so you might finish one of Johnny's missions and immediately jump to Niko to deal with the fallout, creating a far more immersive experience.
What the GTA IV switch mod does
Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
Seamless switching | Swap between Niko, Johnny, and Luis GTA V-style; the others carry on in the world |
One chronological story | All three campaigns unlock and play in timeline order in a single save |
Persistent status | Each character keeps their own health, weapons, and vehicles across switches |
Story crossovers | Luis unlocks after "Three Leaf Clover," where the timelines intersect |
Personal vehicles | Call any tracked car for delivery anywhere, plus custom safehouses |
The features joey has shown so far, all still in development.
GTA 4 and its two episodes, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, were always secretly one interlocking story. Their timelines overlap, their characters brush past each other, and the same events show up from three different angles. Rockstar Games never gave you a way to feel that as one experience, since each piece shipped separately. This mod does, and it retroactively hands the game that came before GTA 5 the exact character-switching the 2013 game made famous and GTA 6 is expanding.
It is not finished or downloadable yet. Joey is still posting progress clips. You can follow along on Discord for updates, the latest of which includes custom safehouses and an upcoming call-any-car system feature, but it fits a busy stretch for classic Grand Theft Auto modding, right alongside the streamer wiring Twitch chat into San Andreas and the fan who got Vice City running on a GameCube.
With GTA 6 weeks out, the community is busy making the old games feel new.