Trivia / Grand Theft Auto IV

• Acting for Two: Karel Roden voices both Mikhail Faustin and Wade "The Fixer" Johnson.
• Banned in China: The Thai government called for the ban of the game after a Royal Thai Police officer caught an 18-year old student who killed a cab driver. He admitted that he wanted to rob him to get some money to play in the arcade, especially since the suspect said he wanted to see if it's easy to rob someone like in GTA IV. As of 2013, the GTA series are not allowed to be sold in the country for commercial purposes.^note This affected the subsequent releases such as Chinatown Wars and GTA V as well as earlier releases, except the Steam version of GTA V.
• Creator Backlash: Michael Hollick has gone on record as criticizing Rockstar for underpaying him and granting him no royalties or residuals for his role as Niko. Notably, while Scott Hill and Mario D'Leon both reprised their roles as Johnny Klebitz and Luis Lopez for the expansion packs, Hollick did not reprise his role as Niko, forcing the latter to speak through reused dialogue.
• Dueling Games: This game came out around the same time as Saints Row 2, and each of these two games have almost diametrically opposed design philosophies, which means a lot of gamers tend to favor one over the other.
• Fake American: The Texan assassinations manager Wade "The Fixer" Johnson is voiced by the Czech actor Karel Roden.
• Fake Nationality: All of the Serbian characters, including the protagonist Niko Bellic, are played by American actors.
• Fake Russian: Zigzagged. Many Russian bystanders are played by actual Russian actors and will often speak in their native language. However, the same cannot be said for major characters. While the actors for some characters like Vlad, Bulgarin, and Dimitri (Misha Kuznetsov, Vitali Baganov, and Moti Margolin respectively) are Russian, the others are not; Mikhail Faustin's actor - Karel Roden - is Czech, and Timur's actor Glenn Fleshler is American.
• Shrug of God: Rockstar were on record saying Niko has no official nationality, despite Niko being strongly implied as of Serbian descent.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Early in development, Rockstar considered setting the game not just in New York City, but in New York State as well, a la San Andreas, complete with their own renditions of the Hamptons and the Adirondacks. While this was dropped so that they could focus on Liberty City and Alderney, references to an area called "the Carraways" (presumably based on the Hamptons) do come up in the dialogue. Grand Theft Auto V would later include a countryside region based on rural and coastal areas of southern California.
  • The player could also do friend activities with Bernie, Real Badman, and Phil Bell.
  • The mission "Pest Control" was originally supposed to let the player choose between killing Ray or Phil. This was cut because it would affect the Deal Ending, where Phil assists you during the mission.
  • Some vehicles from previous games were going to appear, with several even completely finished within the files.
  • One of the voice actors considered for Niko Bellic was Vladimir Mashkov (the actor for Sasha from Behind Enemy Lines, on whose look Niko is based), but he ended up turning down the offer.
  • Every single closed-down Burger Shot, Cluckin' Bell, and TW@ has data that hints they were going to be functional at one point.
• Word of Saint Paul: While Niko's nationality is generally given the Shrug of God treatment, his voice actor said he was played as a Serbian.

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