Liberty City Across Eras: 1997 to Chinatown Wars

How Liberty City changed from GTA 1 to GTA III, Liberty City Stories, GTA IV, its episodes and Chinatown Wars: islands, boroughs and analogues.

Liberty City has had three different layouts and, by our count, hosts more GTA releases than any other city. It was a top-down 2D city in 1997, three islands in 2001, and four boroughs plus a neighboring state in 2008. Each version answered a different question. The 1997 city asked whether a top-down crime game could work at all. The 2001 city proved a 3D one could. The 2008 city tried to capture New York itself. This page lines the versions up, says which real place each one was meant to evoke according to the outlets that covered it, and shows what carried over.

At a glance

Item	Detail	Source
First appearance	Grand Theft Auto, PC, 1997	Retro Gamer via GamesRadar+
Real-world analogue	New York City (how closely varies)	Retro Gamer; Engadget/Game Informer; GamesRadar+
Games set there	GTA (1997), GTA III (2001), Liberty City Stories (2005), GTA IV (2008), The Lost and Damned (2009), Chinatown Wars (2009), The Ballad of Gay Tony (2009)	Take-Two releases; Retro Gamer
Layouts	2D city (1997); three islands (2001 and 2005); four boroughs plus Alderney (2008 and 2009)	GamesRadar+; Engadget
Protagonists there	Claude (GTA III), Toni Cipriani (LCS), Niko Bellic (GTA IV), Johnny Klebitz, Luis Lopez, Huang Lee	GamesRadar+; Take-Two releases
Next mention	GTA VI: Lucia's family once lived there (F35)	rockstargames.com/VI

What is counted, and how

We count a game as a Liberty City game when a Rockstar or Take-Two release names Liberty City as its setting. For the two oldest games, GTA (1997) and GTA III, we rely on Retro Gamer's history. GTA Advance (2004) is also set in Liberty City according to the GamesRadar+ timeline, but we have no primary source for its map, so it is linked at GTA Advance and left out of the comparison table.

Real-world analogues come only from developers quoted by a major outlet, or from the outlet itself. Where we compare layouts ourselves, we say so.

Two gaps are worth showing:

GTA III (October 2001, per Retro Gamer) to GTA IV (April 29, 2008, per Take-Two): about six and a half years. We do not have a primary-source day for GTA III's launch, so we do not give a day count.
GTA IV (Apr 29 2008) to The Lost and Damned (Feb 17 2009) is 294 days. To Chinatown Wars (Mar 17 2009) is 322 days. To The Ballad of Gay Tony (Oct 29 2009) is 548 days. That is three more Liberty City releases within 18 months of GTA IV.

The 1997 city: one of three

The original game, GTA (1997), had three cities. Retro Gamer, in a feature written before GTA IV and republished by GamesRadar+, says the three maps were based on New York, Miami and San Francisco. Liberty City's areas included New Guernsey (New Jersey) and Brocklyn (Brooklyn). The puns set a pattern that every later version keeps: real places, renamed just enough. The open question from the start was how literal the copy of New York should be.

The 2001 city: three islands

GTA III returned to Liberty City in October 2001 on PlayStation 2 (Retro Gamer). See GTA III.

The city has three islands: Portland, where you start; Staunton Island, the second; and Shoreside Vale (GamesRadar+ guide). Bridges and tunnels open as the story moves on. None of the island names maps to a New York borough the way GTA IV's boroughs later would. Our observation: the island structure did more for pacing than for resemblance. Each new island is a new chapter.

The 2005 prequel: same streets, earlier year

Take-Two announced in January 2005 that a PSP GTA would be set in Liberty City. Liberty City Stories launched on PSP in October 2005 and came to PS2 on June 6, 2006 at $19.99. Take-Two called it the all-time number one selling PSP game. Sam Houser said returning to Liberty City on a handheld was "both nostalgic and extremely inspiring".

GamesRadar+ describes it as the same city as GTA III, set a few years earlier. Its timeline puts it in 1998, three years before GTA III's 2001. You play Toni Cipriani. The full story of that game is at GTA Liberty City Stories.

The 2008 rebuild: four boroughs and a state

GTA IV launched on Apr 29 2008 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Take-Two's release promised "a painstakingly detailed and life like city". See GTA IV and Niko Bellic.

The borough mapping was first reported by Game Informer and summarised by Engadget in April 2007:

Algonquin is Manhattan.
Broker is Brooklyn.
Dukes is Queens.
Bohan is the Bronx.
Alderney is New Jersey.
Staten Island is not included.

GamesRadar+'s 2008 review said the city was "nearly as large as the state of San Andreas" and that it looked and felt like New York City. Play starts on Broker and Dukes, and the way into Algonquin opens later.

Our observation: GTA IV answered the question the 1997 map left open. A review said the city felt like New York, and the one-to-one borough names make the debt plain.

The 2009 retellings: same city, three viewpoints

The Lost and Damned (Feb 17 2009, Xbox LIVE, $19.99) follows Johnny Klebitz. Take-Two said its story sits "seamlessly alongside" GTA IV's. The Ballad of Gay Tony (Oct 29 2009) follows Luis Lopez through the city's high-end nightlife. The same day, both episodes shipped together on the Episodes From Liberty City disc, which needs no copy of GTA IV. Take-Two's release places both stories in Liberty City. See The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.

Chinatown Wars (DS, Mar 17 2009) is the odd one. Pocket Gamer reported that its Broker, Dukes, Bohan and Algonquin are similar to GTA IV's "but not street-for-street identical". Alderney is not in that list. Nintendo Life said the boroughs remain intact and the whole city is open from the start. See GTA Chinatown Wars.

How the city changed between versions

This table is ours. It pulls each version's layout and analogue from the sources above.

Version	Game (year)	Islands or boroughs	Real-city analogue, as sourced	Who said so
2D	GTA (1997)	Areas including New Guernsey and Brocklyn	New York; New Guernsey = New Jersey, Brocklyn = Brooklyn	Retro Gamer
3D	GTA III (2001)	Portland, Staunton Island, Shoreside Vale	New York, with no borough-by-borough mapping in our sources	Retro Gamer; our reading
3D	Liberty City Stories (2005)	Same city as GTA III, set in 1998	Same as GTA III	GamesRadar+
HD	GTA IV (2008)	Algonquin, Broker, Dukes, Bohan, plus Alderney	Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, New Jersey; no Staten Island	Game Informer via Engadget
HD	The Lost and Damned, The Ballad of Gay Tony (2009)	Liberty City, as GTA IV	As GTA IV	Take-Two
HD, top-down	Chinatown Wars (2009)	Broker, Dukes, Bohan, Algonquin	As GTA IV, not street-for-street identical	Pocket Gamer

Read across the rows and the pattern is clear. The names stay put, but the city itself gets replaced each era. What lasts is the idea of New York, more than any map.

What carried over

The name and the role. In every era Liberty City is the series' New York.
The gated start. GTA III starts you on Portland. GTA IV starts you on Broker and Dukes. Our observation: both versions open the city in chapters, island by island, as the story moves on.
Not much else. No sourced street layout survives from 2001 to 2008. GTA III's islands and GTA IV's boroughs share no names.

Liberty City in GTA VI

Rockstar has not announced Liberty City as a GTA VI location. Rockstar's GTA VI page says Lucia's mother's dream dates "since their days in Liberty City" (FACTS.md, F35). That is the only confirmed mention. Anything more, such as visits or missions, is unconfirmed. See Lucia and Jason.

Trivia

GTA III has 100 hidden packages, 33 of them on Portland (GamesRadar+ guide).
Engadget noted that the Lenape spoke an Algonquin language, the source of the word "Manhattan", which fits the name Algonquin.
By our count, Liberty City is the setting of seven releases in the table above, eight with GTA Advance. Vice City has four, counting GTA VI. See Vice City.