GTA Episodes from Liberty City is a compilation of two expansion packs released for 2008’s Grand Theft Auto IV. It includes The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, both originally released on the Xbox 360 in 2009 as part of an exclusive deal with Microsoft. Both expansions were later released for PlayStation 3 and Windows in 2010. As with the original Grand Theft Auto IV game, both expansions are set in Liberty City during the year 2008. Each expansion adds new content including missions, weapons, vehicles and side-activities related to the respective expansion’s theme and aesthetics. Episodes from Liberty City is set concurrently to the events of the base game, following new protagonists whose stories intertwine with Niko Bellic‘s, the protagonist of GTA IV.
Episodes from Liberty City can be purchased either digitally as an add-on to the original game or as a separate game physically. If downloaded online, each episode requires the original GTA IV game disc in order to be played, but doesn’t require the disc if the Episodes from Liberty City game disc is used instead. In the former case, slight alterations to the base game’s map occurs to modify certain buildings and main consistency with the expansions.
Both Episodes received critical acclaim, with praise towards the new content and the way the expansions intersect with the original game, though the narratives and characters were met with a more mixed response and were compared and contrasted against the base game. The retail release of the compilation sold less than 160,000 copies by December 2009
