GTA IV: The Lost and Damned (2009): Johnny's Story
The Lost and Damned: the $25 million Xbox 360 episode, what it added to GTA IV, its 420-day exclusivity, and where Johnny Klebitz crosses Niko and Luis.
The Lost and Damned is usually described as GTA IV's first expansion. It was also something more specific: the episode tied to the first $25 million of Microsoft's $50 million deal, priced at $19.99, and kept off PlayStation and PC for 420 days. In our view it mattered because it showed that paid story content for an open-world game could be a full game in its own right, and because its biker story is stitched into Niko Bellic's in places that are easy to miss from GTA IV alone.
At a glance
| Item | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Release (Xbox 360 download) | Feb 17, 2009 | Take-Two, Feb 17 2009 |
| Price at launch | 1600 MS points or $19.99 | Take-Two, Feb 17 2009 |
| Requirements (download) | GTA IV for Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE membership | Take-Two, Feb 17 2009 |
| On disc | Episodes from Liberty City, Oct 29, 2009, $39.99, no GTA IV needed | Take-Two, Oct 29 2009 |
| PS3 and PC | Apr 13, 2010 (North America), Apr 16 (Europe) | Game Informer, Mar 18 2010 |
| Developer | Rockstar North | Metacritic |
| Protagonist | Johnny Klebitz, Vice President of The Lost motorcycle club | Take-Two, Feb 17 2009 |
| Setting | Liberty City, alongside GTA IV's story | Take-Two, Feb 17 2009 |
| Rating | ESRB M | Take-Two, Feb 17 2009 |
| Metacritic | Xbox 360 90 (79 reviews), PS3 88 (4 reviews) | Metacritic, checked Oct 11 2026 |
| Units sold | Not published | Take-Two, May 26 2009 |
For the base game, see GTA IV. For the second episode, see The Ballad of Gay Tony. For the city and the man Johnny keeps running into, see Liberty City and Niko Bellic.
What is counted, and how
Sales. Take-Two never published a unit figure for The Lost and Damned. Its May 26, 2009 results say only that the quarter's sales were "led by" the episode. Analyst forecasts and download counts reported at the time are not Take-Two figures, so they are left out.
The money. In June 2007, Take-Two's CFO Lainie Goldstein explained that Microsoft's $50 million for exclusive Xbox 360 episodes came in two $25 million parts, the first tied to the first episode, then slated for March 2008 (Game Developer, Jun 18 2007). We take the first $25 million as attached to The Lost and Damned because it was the first episode. The length of exclusivity in the contract was never published.
Gaps between dates are counted in calendar days:
- Feb 17, 2009 to Apr 13, 2010: Feb 17, 2009 to Feb 17, 2010 is 365 days; Feb 17 to Mar 17 is 28; Mar 17 to Apr 13 is 27. 365 + 28 + 27 = 420 days of Xbox 360-only play in North America.
- Apr 29, 2008 (GTA IV) to Feb 17, 2009: 294 days.
The crossover table is built from the three games themselves. We did not replay them for this article; mission names and the scenes they share were cross-checked against the community GTA Wiki, used as a pointer only. If a crossing could not be matched in at least one mission page, it is not in the table.
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The setup
Rockstar's launch release sets it out plainly. Johnny Klebitz is Vice President of The Lost, a motorcycle club in Liberty City. Club President Billy Grey comes out of rehab committed to escalating a bitter feud with the rival Angels of Death. Johnny is the one who has to deal with what that means for the club. The story, Rockstar said, sits "seamlessly alongside" GTA IV's.
The tone is darker than Niko's story and much darker than the episode that followed it. Rockstar's own later description pairs it with "additional metal and hard rock tracks along with gang warfare-based gameplay" (Take-Two, Oct 29 2009).
What it changed
Rockstar's February 2009 release promised "new weapons, music, multiplayer modes, mini-games, vehicles and a host of other features." Reviews at launch filled in the detail. This table lists only additions named by those sources.
| Area | What The Lost and Damned added over GTA IV | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Story | New protagonist and narrative running alongside Niko's | Take-Two, Feb 17 2009 |
| Weapons | Grenade launcher, automatic 9mm pistol, pipe bombs | Joystiq, Feb 18 2009 |
| Crew | Fellow bikers ride with you, improve with use, can be called by phone; they bring replacement bikes and sell weapons at a discount | Joystiq; Game Informer |
| Side content | 25 gang war battles against the Angels of Death; 12 biker races | Joystiq |
| Clubhouse | Hangout games such as arm wrestling and cards | Game Informer |
| Multiplayer | New modes including Chopper vs. Chopper, Witness Protection and Own the City; Game Informer counts five new modes in all, including biker races and co-op | Joystiq; Game Informer |
| Music | New rock and rap tracks, with Max Cavalera appearing as a DJ | Game Informer |
| Price model | Paid story episode, $19.99, download cards sold at retail | Take-Two, Feb 17 2009 |
The last row is the one with the longest reach. Sam Houser's launch quote said the episode pushed "the definition of downloadable content to its very limit." Joystiq's reviewer estimated twenty or more hours of content and wrote that Rockstar had set a precedent for the quality and size of a DLC offering.
Where Johnny crosses Niko and Luis
Spoilers for mid-game missions in all three stories. Each row is one scene seen from more than one protagonist.
| Johnny's mission (TLAD) | Same events in GTA IV (Niko) | Same events in TBoGT (Luis) | What is shared |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buyer's Market | Blow Your Cover | none | Elizabeta Torres introduces Niko to Johnny; the drug buyers turn out to be undercover police |
| Roman's Holiday | Hostile Negotiation | none | Johnny delivers Roman Bellic to Dimitri Rascalov's men at a Bohan warehouse; Niko later rescues him there |
| Diamonds in the Rough | (Niko not present) | Frosting on the Cake | The Lost crash a diamond buy by Tony Prince, Luis and Evan Moss; Johnny takes the stones for Ray Boccino and hides them in trash bags |
| (Johnny not present) | Taking in the Trash | none | Niko collects the trash bags Johnny hid the diamonds in |
| Collector's Item | Museum Piece | Not So Fast | Niko and Johnny attend the diamond sale at the Libertonian museum; Luis attacks it; Johnny gets away with the cash |
| (background only) | Three Leaf Clover | I Luv LC | Johnny rides past during the bank robbery's street scene as seen in Luis's opening; the shootout also appears in TLAD's end credits |
What the table shows: Johnny shares more scenes with Niko than with Luis, and the diamonds are the thread that pulls all three into one room. The full three-way picture, including the scenes Johnny is not in, is on our Ballad of Gay Tony page.
The exclusivity timeline
| Date | Event | Days after Feb 17, 2009 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 2007 | Take-Two says the first episode is slated for March 2008, tied to $25 million from Microsoft | before release | Game Developer, Jun 18 2007 |
| Apr 29, 2008 | GTA IV launches on PS3 and Xbox 360 | -294 | Take-Two, Jun 5 2008 |
| Feb 17, 2009 | The Lost and Damned on Xbox LIVE, $19.99 | 0 | Take-Two, Feb 17 2009 |
| Oct 29, 2009 | On disc in Episodes from Liberty City with The Ballad of Gay Tony, $39.99 | 254 | Take-Two, Oct 29 2009 |
| Jan 29, 2010 | PS3 and PC versions announced for Mar 30, 2010 | 346 | Game Developer, Jan 29 2010 |
| Mar 18, 2010 | Delayed two weeks after a late content request from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe | 394 | Game Informer, Mar 18 2010 |
| Apr 13, 2010 | Out on PS3 and PC in North America ($20 per episode, $40 disc) | 420 | Game Informer; Game Developer |
Rough arithmetic, for scale only: $25 million over 420 days is about $59,500 per day of exclusivity (25,000,000 / 420 = 59,524). The contract's terms were never published, so read this as an illustration, not a price.
Reception
| Outlet | Reviewer | Version | Date | Score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joystiq | David Hinkle | Xbox 360 | Feb 18, 2009 | no numeric score | Engadget archive |
| Game Informer | Matt Bertz | Xbox 360 | page dated Sep 22, 2009 | 9/10 | Game Informer |
| Metacritic | 79 reviews | Xbox 360 | aggregate | 90 | Metacritic |
| Metacritic | 4 reviews | PS3 | aggregate | 88 | Metacritic |
Game Informer called it a deep expansion that fans should not miss but that would not change the mind of anyone who already disliked the series. Joystiq's main reservation was familiarity: most quests and errands were ones players had already done in GTA IV and earlier games. The 90 on Xbox 360 is 8 points under GTA IV's 98 there (98 - 90 = 8), which we read as excellent expansion rather than new game.
Legacy
The Lost and Damned's real influence is on how Rockstar builds worlds. Rockstar's 2010 Complete Edition release describes the trilogy as "three distinct stories, interwoven." This episode is where that weave first became visible: a scene from Niko's game, replayed from the other side of the gun. GTA V later put three protagonists in one game; The Lost and Damned and its sequel put three in one city across three releases.
Trivia
- Retail stores sold download cards for the episode, redeemable on Xbox LIVE by owners of GTA IV (Take-Two, Feb 17 2009).
- The PC version on Games for Windows Live promised 32-player multiplayer and an advanced video editor (Game Developer, Jan 29 2010).
- The 2010 PS3 and PC delay hit both regions even though the requested edits applied to the European version, so that both would release the same week (Game Informer, Mar 18 2010).
Sources
- Take-Two (Business Wire), The Lost and Damned Now Available, Feb 17 2009
- Game Developer, Brandon Boyer, $50M 360 content deal, Jun 18 2007
- Take-Two Interactive, 8-K exhibit 99.1, May 26 2009
- Take-Two (Business Wire), The Ballad of Gay Tony and Episodes From Liberty City Now Available, Oct 29 2009
- Game Developer, Episodes From Liberty City Confirmed For PS3, PC, Jan 29 2010
- Game Informer, Episodes From Liberty City PS3, PC Delayed, Mar 18 2010
- Joystiq via Engadget, David Hinkle, Feb 18 2009
- Game Informer, Matt Bertz, The Lost and Damned review
- Metacritic, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned
- Take-Two Interactive, 8-K exhibit 99.1, Jun 5 2008
- Take-Two (Business Wire), Complete Edition Now Available, Oct 27 2010
- Rockstar North, The Lost and Damned, Grand Theft Auto IV and The Ballad of Gay Tony (games); crossovers cross-checked against GTA Wiki pages Frosting on the Cake, Missions in TLAD, Buyer's Market, Roman's Holiday, Diamonds, Museum Piece, Three Leaf Clover (pointer only)