Weekly Roundup: Lost GTA IV Dev Kit Found, Elder Scrolls: Blades Shuts Down, and More
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Weekly Roundup: Key Takeaways
- Lost GTA IV Content Found for $5: A $5 Xbox 360 dev kit from a car boot sale has unearthed 118GB of rare beta assets, including a scrapped zombies mode.
- The Elder Scrolls: Blades is Being Shut Down: Bethesda sunsets its mobile RPG on June 30, 2026, launching a “1-gem” fire sale on all store items until the end.
- School’s Out for Rec Room: Social VR giant Rec Room closes June 1 after a decade, citing high operating costs despite a massive 150 million player base.
- Deus Ex Creator’s New Game Loses PvPvE: OtherSide Entertainment is pivoting Thick as Thieves from multiplayer PvPvE to a purely solo and co-op stealth focus.
- Reviews in Progress: Eneba News launches a new player-first review series, starting with GRIDbeat! and upcoming critical appraisals of Tombwater and Grime II.
Lost GTA IV Content Found for $5
Car boots are a common thing in the UK, where anyone can set up a stall and sell whatever they want. It’s at one of these, in Edinborough, that a lucky individual known only as “janmatant” bought an Xbox 360 for the equivalent of $5, only to find that it contained a GTA 4 November 2007 build.
The Xbox has a Rockstar North sticker on it, as well as runs XDK, the official Xbox 360 dev kit, which means that not only is this find completely legitimate, but that there’s a bunch of stuff GTA modders have been searching for, for years. These include unused or otherwise previously unavailable assets, like ferries, weapons, and even hints at the long-rumoured aborted zombies mode GTA IV was initially supposed to include.
Users on GTAForums shared a link to 118GB of data from the dev kit on archive.org but this has since been taken down; many suspect Take Two Interactive (the owner of Rockstar) issued a DMCA, although no one has been able to confirm this as of this writing. However, this hasn’t stopped people from sharing what else they’ve uncovered so far, including beta assets of characters and locations.
The bad news is that the build is missing a few crucial files to get it up and running as-is, but the good news is GTA modders are currently looking at a workaround, with an aim to get at least something playable on PC. With the ways things are going, they’ll probably get this sorted before GTA VI releases.
The Elder Scrolls: Blades is Being Shut Down
Released on mobile devices in March, 2019, The Elder Scrolls: Blades is, quite literally, a mobile version of The Elder Scrolls. Players can create a character with a lot of customization options, and then go on quests. However, rather than an open world, Blades presents dungeons as ‘pop-ups’; you click to explore and battle creatures (in first-person mode, using touch-screen controls to attack, move, and look around) and once a quest is finished, you return to your home base.
Blades is first and foremost a mobile game, though, so there is – or was – a strong emphasis on microtransactions. Bethesda, the publisher, announced this week that the game’s going offline for good on June 30, but until then players can buy pretty much anything from the in-game store for just 1 Gem each (Gems can be found in chests and by completing missions).
There have also been reports that the game’s already been delisted but this isn’t entirely accurate: it’s still available in select EU regions, likely for testing purposes. For example, you can still find it on Google Play, although you may have to set your location to Slovenia, wink wink.
The impending demise of The Elder Scrolls: Blades marks the second mobile-focused Elder Scrolls game to get sunset; card-battler The Elder Scrolls: Legends walked into the great video game sunset back in January 2025, although the community for that game is working on keeping it going. Otherwise, Elder Scrolls fans who are desperate to play something on a phone or tablet can always try Castles. This is a kingdom-management sim similar to Fallout Shelter, and it’s available on Android and iOS.
School’s Out for Rec Room
Once positioned as a Roblox-beater and valued at $3.5 billion a few years ago, social media/gaming platform Rec Room will be shut down on June 1. In a news post on the official site this week, the company said: “Over the past decade, Rec Room grew into something amazing, reaching over 150 million players and creators along the way. Players made over half a billion friends on the platform.”
“Despite this popularity, we never quite figured out how to make Rec Room a sustainably profitable business. Our costs always ended up overwhelming the revenue we brought in,” the company added.
The news post also outlined that, while the game will remain playable until June, a lot of the features are currently being retired. These include the ability to create a new account, add friends, and paid creator content.
Rec Room was founded in 2016 by Nick Fajt and Cameron Brown, and was one of the first VR games to encourage social interaction. It was later ported to PC and mobile devices. Whereas recent news that Roblox’ CEO David Baszucki was stepping down was greeted with relief and a lot of “about time” messages (despite ending up being an April Fool’s joke), the Rec Room bad news has been greeted with warmth and fond memories from its community.
Deus Ex Creator’s New Game Loses PvPvE
First announced in 2024 as a multiplayer stealth game, Thick as Thieves is losing this aspect to focus on co-op and single-player mechanics. It’s being developed by OtherSide Entertainment, a studio founded by devs who worked on Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex (including Warren Spector).
“When we first revealed Thick as Thieves we intended to focus on PvPvE gameplay,” OtherSide said in a recent post on the game’s Steam page. “However, as development progressed and the world of Kilcairn has come to life, we found that we were having more fun with solo and co-op play.”
“This sharpened focus has allowed us to double down on what makes Thick as Thieves truly special – dynamic stealth gameplay. We’re already seeing how this has strengthened the moment-to-moment action, whether you’re playing solo or with a partner in co-op. We’ve had some fantastic moments while testing the game. Now we’re putting all our energy into making things even better as we build up to launch.”
Thick as Thieves is set to get an updated trailer and further info on April 9 as part of the next Triple I Initiative showcase.
Reviews in Progress
Lastly, we’ve started running game reviews here on Eneba News. These already exist on the Commercial side, but to be frank they’re SEO-focused; by contrast, our most recent review of GRIDbeat! is based on around 10 hours of gameplay by our editorial team to provide a critical, player-first perspective.
We’re currently working on reviews for other recent releases: Tombwater, Grime II, and Darwin’s Paradox, so keep an eye out for them.
Tombwater is a Zelda-like set in the Wild West with RPG aspects and more than a few nods to Dark Souls. Grime II is a roguelike set in a really vivid, gooey world that also has a bit of Soulslike DNA in its weird bones. Darwin’s Paradox is a cartoony platformer that came out yesterday and was revealed as part of a Konami event in June last year.
