The same modder who made headlines last week for squeezing Grand Theft Auto V down to 2.5GB has turned their attention to its predecessor, and the results are somehow even more drastic. This time, Grand Theft Auto IV went from its roughly 20GB install size down to just 684 megabytes. For context, that's smaller than most smartphone photos taken in 2026. As for how intact the game remained, well... we'll get to that.
It's smaller than a single high-resolution texture file in most modern games. It's the kind of file size that makes you wonder whether you're downloading a game or a malware-filled PDF. The process, however, tells a different story than the number suggests. To hit that 684MB target, the modder had to compress textures, strip out all missions, remove the radio stations, gut the cutscenes, and delete roughly 90 percent of Liberty City.
If you've ever wandered through Broker, Algonquin, and Alderney in the original game, imagining those boroughs mostly gone gives you an idea of how little is actually left, which is where the conversation takes an interesting turn. At a certain point, "compression" stops being the right word. When 90 percent of the map is missing, the missions are gone, and there's no radio playing while you drive through the handful of remaining streets, what you have isn't really a compressed version of GTA IV but a tech demo wearing GTA IV's gutted skin.
