GTA IV Beta Build from 2007 Has Surfaced After Being Found at a Scottish Car Boot Sale

Name: Grand Theft Auto IV Beta Build
Author: Rockstar North

Sagar Mankar
Mar 30
2 min read

A near-complete prototype build of Grand Theft Auto IV has been discovered on an Xbox 360 development kit purchased for just £5 at a car boot sale in Scotland.

The person who found it, a GTAForums user named janmatant, picked up the console locally and later realized it still had internal Rockstar North development files sitting on it. The build is dated November 23, 2007, roughly five months before GTA IV officially launched in April 2008.

It is a 127 GB archive that is approximately 95% intact, making it one of the most significant pieces of GTA preservation history to ever surface publicly.

For context, Xbox 360 development kits are specialized hardware that game studios use during production.

A GTA IV beta build from 2007 was found on a £5 Xbox 360 dev kit at a Scottish car boot sale. Here is what the community has uncovered so far. — Image credit: Rockstar Games

What Is Inside the Build?

The build is not fully playable. It freezes due to missing files, most notably a critical file called xbox360.rpf, along with gaps in movie data and common data files. However, that has not stopped the modding and research community from tearing into it.

Here is what has been found so far:

Early character models, including a beta version of Michelle, that differ noticeably from the final game
Placeholder and unused weapon models, including a silenced pistol
An early version of Niko Bellic's walking-while-aiming animation
A ferry model that matches footage seen in GTA IV's very first trailer but was cut before release
Alternate and unused radio content, including tracks like "Life on Mars" by Dexter Wansel and "Sucker MC's" by Run DMC
Different mobile phone models for Niko, including the Badger phone seen in the second trailer
References to something called "Z: Resurrection," which appears to be an unused zombie mode
Unfinished UI and navigation prototypes that were either simplified or cut entirely

What Happens Next?

Janmatant has stated he plans to sell the development kit as a complete unit rather than separating the data from the hardware. The community continues to extract and document assets, and new findings are still being shared regularly across forums and social media.