Grand Theft Auto IV Is Officially Coming Back to Steam, But Not All of It

The grand mystery of Grand Theft Auto IV's delisting from Steam is nearly over. While the reason -- Games For Windows Live -- has been known since just after the game first disappeared from the digital platform, no resolution had been announced. Until now. It would appear that Grand Theft Auto IV will officially return to Steam in March as Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition, but it's going to be missing a couple important parts like multiplayer.

The new store listing over on Steam has a bunch of details about the new edition of the game, but the most relevant bits are that, as of March 19th, it combines the base game and Episodes from Liberty City, Games For Windows Live is no longer attached to it, multiplayer is no longer available, leaderboards are gone, and several radio stations will be temporarily unavailable. Additionally, current save files will be compatible, so never fear if you've got saves from the previous version.

"Grand Theft Auto IV was originally created for the Games For Windows Live platform," Rockstar said after the game initially disappeared from Steam. "With Microsoft no longer supporting Games For Windows Live, it is no longer possible to generate the additional keys needed to continue selling the current version of the game. We are looking at other options for distributing GTAIV for PC and will share more information as soon as we can."

And it sounds like this new complete edition, with its missing parts, is the option that Rockstar has decided on when it comes to "distributing GTAIV for PC."

What do you think of this new version of Grand Theft Auto IV that's coming to Steam? Will you miss the multiplayer? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!

Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition is set to debut on Steam on March 19th. It is currently unclear exactly how much this edition of the video game will cost, but it does include the base game and Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the Grand Theft Auto title right here.