An interview with the modder who turned GTA IV's Liberty City into a Chinese metropolis

Yesterday, we wrote about a very cool new GTA IV mod, created by Chinese modder “Teacher Cui”, that turned parts of Grand Theft Auto IV‘s Liberty City into a typical Chinese city by replacing many of the game’s signs and billboards. There are tons of screenshots in our original post, but you can check out a quick video of the mod in action below:

Games in Asia was able to get in touch with “Teacher Cui” and talk to him a bit about this clever mod. Although it doesn’t cover the entire GTA IV map—only around 1/4 of it—Cui says it has taken him quite a long time to put together.

Aside from some help from a team pasting the road signs and banners in the China Style mod, it was all done by me, including all the testing. As for how long it took in total, all I can tell you is that every door, window, and advertisement took quite a bit of energy. Just finding a [real-life] window that suited the in-game shop might take an hour.

That’s because Cui says that while some of the signs and ads in the mod were taken from images he found online, many were taken from photos Cui himself took in his home city (he didn’t say which). So, in addition to the hours spend replacing the game’s original signs with his own, he also spend hours traipsing around the city looking for suitable signs, posters, billboards, and banners to put in the game.

Why go to all this trouble?

I think that in a game like GTA IV, it feels more real to those who live in New York City than it does to us, because it has that local flavor and it’s similar to the real-life environment around you. Why would we Chinese people not also want to experience a free game world in a virtual Chinese city? So I took this opportunity and came up with the idea to create a [game] world with Chinese characteristics.

Of course, he also did it because he’s a GTA fan.

Since the mod’s release, Cui says he has been pleasantly surprised by the interest in downloading the mod, and the praise it has received. Of course, there have also been complaints, and the mod’s detractors often harp on the fact that Chinese ads and signs look a bit out of place on the “Western-style architecture” of GTA‘s New York. But Cui says replacing the buildings themselves would simply be too time-consuming for him to consider.

So what’s next for the enterprising modder? Further expansion into GTA IV, he says, including into the suburbs.

Because the city and suburban locations are different, I’m going to change the style of the advertisements I put in. For example, the suburban areas will get more of a rural feel, and the more developed [downtown] areas will get more brand-name product advertisements.

And his ambitions don’t end there. GTA V still isn’t available for PC, but if it does get ported, Cui says he’ll start modding that game, too. “A China-style GTA V has been in my plans since last year,” he told me.