Those who continue to play GTA 4 on PC might have to make some adjustments!
Launched in the year 2008, Grand Theft Auto 4 continues to be one of the most successful games launched by Rockstar Games. GTA 5, which came out in 2013, has emerged as one of the most successful gaming titles of all time. At the moment, the entire world is looking forward to the arrival of GTA 6. Despite this, the 17-year-old GTA 4 continues to be quite relevant among a section of fans. If you are somebody who continues to be hooked to this game, here is some important news for you.
GTA 4 is discontinuing support for automatic save migration from Games for Windows – Live in the Rockstar Games Launcher. Players, however, will still have the chance to get their saved data in GTA 4 migrated in a manual manner after the discontinuation process goes through. This particular process will be carried out in two distinctive steps.
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After re-releasing GTA 4 on Steam in the year 2020, Rockstar Games ostracized the game’s PC version from components connected to Games for Windows – Live. For the uninitiated, this was a service that was discontinued in the year 2014. This led to the game getting integrated with the online services of the company, along with the launcher ecosystem. To ensure this transition happened smoothly, a background scanner was installed in the Rockstar Games Launcher. Because of this, direct imports of legacy save files became impossible. For the longest time, this was an automatic process wherein one could trigger it manually after tracing the launcher’s settings.
A couple of days back, Rockstar made an announcement about discontinuing the background scanner and several features related to it. This would have directly resulted in the save data migration from Games for Windows – Live not getting performed in an automatic manner. August 25 onwards, the process of implementing these changes has started. Now, players will no longer be able to see the option to scan for GTA 4 save files. It will be removed completely from the Rockstar Games Launcher settings. Till September 16, however, the automatic scanner will not be removed completely.
The aforementioned discontinuation would have a major impact on the overall convenience of the users. GTA 4 players, however, would still have the opportunity to migrate their GFWL save data in a manual manner. Fans can trace the legacy files stored in the “savegames” folder located at “%LOCALAPPDATA%\Rockstar Games\GTA IV” or “%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Rockstar Games\GTA IV”.
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One must remember that these files have to be copied and kept in the right directory. This directory can then be traced via the Rockstar Games Relauncher through the save files section of the Settings menu. One would be able to use this shortcut only if GTA 4 has been installed.
Till now, Rockstar has not divulged the reasons behind getting the automatic scanner removed. However, one can arrive at some assumptions. One of the reasons behind its removal could be the fact that not many were using this feature.
Tanya Jacobs focuses solely on the fast-paced world of gaming, from PC to console. With nearly 2,000 posts in the niche, she consistently covers all major leaks, industry news, and game updates the moment they happen. You can find all her posts here.