10 years after the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar Games will have to remove few in-game songs as the license for them is going to expire later this month.
Ten years have passed since Grand Theft Auto IV‘s release, and back in the days, it felt like a huge open world game that for the first time ever in the history of the franchise introduced a big mature narrative element into it.
After this long timeframe, anyway, we’ve been reported about the upcoming removal of many songs from the title’s soundtrack. Apparently, rights are expiring upon a bunch of them, and Rockstar Games is required to make them leave the in-game radio stations later this month.
This isn’t something particularly new to the series, as the exact same thing happened to Grand Theft Auto San Andreas back in 2014. In that case, the developer didn’t issue any statement or advice before it happened.
Interestingly, as reported by Kotaku UK, PS3 players are being given the opportunity to download the digital tracks and stream them from their console so that they don’t lose any particular song in the process, thanks to a prompt popping up on their consoles before April 26.
We don’t know whether Xbox 360 and PC users will be given the same chance, and at this point, we’re not even told which songs are going to leave the game, but it must be noted GTA IV had, among its pros, a lot of amazing songs to listen to while playing.
As of July 2013, Grand Theft Auto IV sold 25 million copies. Sequel GTA V generated $6 billion in both sales and post-launch purchases, making it the single most profitable media and entertainment product ever.
