GTA Zombie Mode Sounds Like a Blast, But Here’s Why I’m Glad We Never Got It

Grand Theft Auto is one of gaming’s biggest franchises, with a strong mix of realistic dangers and expansive gameplay options ensuring players can be whatever kind of criminal they want to be. Every entry in the series has a massive amount of depth, with plenty of options for transforming a broad experience into something that feels tailor-made for each player. That includes a truly vast number of gameplay options and minigames, offering players plenty of chances to do whatever they want in settings like Liberty City.

It only makes sense that there were even more ideas that didn’t make the final cut, with certain modes and features cut during development. One of these cut scenes, at least in one Grand Theft Auto game, seems to have been a zombie mode. While the idea of dealing with hordes of the undead in the GTA engine seems like a fun idea,

How A Rockstar Fan Found Out About GTA IV’s Cut Zombie Mode

At a sale in Edinburgh, Scotland, a GTA player who frequents the GTA Forums under the user name of janmatant purchased an Xbox 360 dev kit. It turns out that the dev kit was seemingly used at Rockstar, which makes sense given that Rockstar North is located in the city. While going through the Xbox, janmatant reportedly found a 2007 beta build of Grand Theft Auto IV. While the game seems somewhat playable, it also contains numerous unfinished or cut assets and gameplay elements. The user uploaded the contents of the build online, and players have been going through it all to discover previously unknown aspects and secrets about the game.

This also includes an apparent “zombie mode” that was cut from the game, based on certain assets that included bloodied bodies and specific items. A former Rockstar developer responded to the story published by Kotaku about the mode, suggesting that the proposed mode was just an “experiment” played with by artists and developers on the game. The same developer claims that teams behind Rockstar games are always pitching zombie modes that are largely pushed aside in the end — although sometimes, as with Red Dead Redemption, there are exceptions. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t appear that the GTA IV zombie mode ever made it past some early conceptions.

Why It’s A Good Thing GTA Doesn’t Get Zombies

On paper, a Grand Theft Auto zombie mode makes perfect sense. The naturally over-the-top possibilities presented by GTA games would be a natural fit for a zombie mode, essentially allowing players to fully indulge in all of the wild violence they can stomach. The scale of GTA IV could have also laid the groundwork for a genuinely massive take on the horror genre while still feeling unique to the zombie battles that can happen in Red Dead Redemption. The massive number of people capable of being on-screen at any given time could have forced players to confront genuine hordes of enemies, while the catastrophic feeling of the cityscape would have only been amplified by the horror touch.

However, GTA isn’t a fit with the more supernatural elements that can pop up in the Red Dead series. While GTA can be as ridiculous as the player wants it to be, there’s always a certain grounded element to the game. As a result, the scant supernatural elements that can be discovered, like the beating heart in the Statue of Happiness in GTA IV or the ghost of Jolene Cranley-Evans in GTA V, are more creepy precisely because they are so out of the usual world of GTA. Introducing elements like the undead would undercut that effect, eating away at the unsettling nature of those easter eggs in a detrimental way.

Even beyond that, the natural shift in gameplay that would come from a GTA zombie mode could undercut the game’s action. Even the most ridiculous feats in GTA come with a certain level of naturalism, whether that be the limits of what a character can do or the destruction that they’ve wrought. It’s a game series predicated on being tied to the real world. Incorporating a zombie mode would have cut into that, destabilizing the more grounded aspects of the game. If you want a zombie game, there are plenty of options out there. I’m glad GTA never got that mode, especially because it might have undercut what makes GTA special in the first place.