GTA 4 developer finally explains why there are no ferries

Key takeaways

When GTA 4 was revealed 17 years ago, its trailer showed a boat pulling into Liberty City.
This feature didn't make it into the final game and fans have wondered why for years.
Former Rockstar Games legend Obey Vermeij finally explained why they were cut on Twitter.

A former Rockstar Games developer has finally explained why ferries were cut from Grand Theft Auto 4 after appearing in the game's first trailer.

Despite making some of the biggest games of all time like GTA and Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar Games is very secretive about its development process. It's very rare that we hear about content cut from its games, or know the truth behind some of its easter eggs and mysteries.

related to

Bully On GTA+ is a great opportunity to revisit Rockstar's most grounded open-world.

Rockstar has never made an open-world game as small-scale as Bully, and that's what makes it great.

That's been the case for a long time, but the curtain has begun to lift in the past few years thanks to former Rockstar Games employee, Obe Vermes. Vermeij worked as a technical director during his time at Rockstar and had a hand in many of its biggest games before GTA 5, which means he had a lot of insight into suicide planes, shape-shifting moons, and dirt roads.

Rockstar Veterans Explain Why Ferries Were Cut From GTA 4

Although most of Vermeij's revelations relate to the classic PS2 trilogy of GTA games, he also shared some interesting facts and details about GTA 4, which was his last game at Rockstar because of how dark it was. As pointed out by GamesRadar+, Vermeij was recently asked about something that has been bugging GTA fans for 17 years – what happened to GTA 4's fairies?

For those who don't remember, the original reveal trailer for GTA 4 showed a boat pulling into Liberty City's ferry station, hinting that they would be in the end game. While the ferry station is still in the game, there are nowhere to be seen with the big boats to use.

Fans have speculated for some time as to why this might be and Vermes finally revealed why on Twitter. In response to a fan question, Vermees said that the removed ferries had nothing to do with performance and instead caused problems with the physics caused by the cars sitting on the ferry.

It wasn't really because of the performance. It's more that they were causing other problems with physics (cars sitting on boats). Simultaneously people line up and go out. They were more trouble than they were worth. — Obey Vermes

That's not all, though, Vermes also said that all the people queuing to get on and off the ferry caused problems for developers. Overall, the ferries were simply “more trouble than they're worth”, leading Rockstar to cut them from the game and their only appearance was in that iconic reveal trailer.