Trailer 1: "Things will be different"
The official GTA IV website launched on March 1, 2007, and consisted of a logo and a countdown to the first official trailer. The countdown began at 28 days, and reached zero at 18:00 EST on March 29, 2007. This event was hyped up beyond belief, as fans and media waited to catch the first glimpse of the most anticipated title of the year. Literally hundreds of thousands of people sat in front of their computers on March 29, waiting for the countdown to approach zero. However, Rockstar's marketing plan backfired, and the site crashed 10 minutes before the trailer was due to be shown, as a result of the immense level of traffic it had generated. The trailer finally became available once some of the traffic had died down, almost an hour after the countdown had ended.
The trailer was titled "Things will be different" and lasted approximately one minute. It featured as an introduction to the setting (Liberty City) and was inspired by the trailer for the 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi, which featured similar time-lapse footage of New York City.
Trailer 2: "Looking for that special someone"
Rockstar announced on June 11, 2007 that a new trailer would be released on June 28, 2007. The following week, an email broadcast was sent to subscribers of the GTA mailing list, to announce that the trailer would go online at 12:00 PM EDT. In order to avoid the chaos which occured during the unveiling of the first trailer, Rockstar formed a partnership with Yahoo! Games, and they released the trailer together simultaneously so that the traffic was shared between two sites. This meant that fans had a better chance of seeing the new trailer during the heavy traffic period.
The trailer runs for approximately one minute in length, and features a song by The Boggs called "Arm in arm". The trailer is more action-packed than the first GTA IV trailer, and hints at various aspects of the storyline by revealing scenes from selected missions.
Trailer 3: "Move up, ladies"
After nearly four months without any news, Rockstar Games announced that a third trailer would be released on December 6, 2007. The announcement was made on November 28, 2007, and coincided with the unveiling of the official box art. The trailer went online at 3 PM EST on the official website.
The duration of the trailer is two minutes. It focuses on Niko, and the relationship that he has with his cousin, Roman. Various new characters are introduced, and there is a lot more action than in the previous trailers. The graphics look more polished, and there is an immense level of detail and realism. The track is called "King Ring" by Serjoga, who is a popular rap artist in Russia.
Trailer 4: "Good lord, what are you doing?" AKA "Everyone's a rat"
The fourth and final GTA IV trailer was released on March 27, 2008, after being announced by Rockstar Games on March 14th. The trailer launched at 10 PM GMT (6 PM EDT) and runs for one minute and seventeen seconds.
The trailer is comprised of cut-scene and gameplay footage, and a selection of new screenshots appear in a montage towards the end. These screenshots were distributed (in their original high-quality formats) to some of the top GTA fan sites shortly before the trailer was released. The song in the trailer is "Real McKoy" by Mavado.