Overview
Estimated Trophy Difficulty: 10/10 (Platinum Difficulty Rating)
Overall Number of Trophies: 51 / 40-, 7-, 3-, 1-
Offline Trophies: 40
Online Trophies: 10
Approx Time to Platinum: 80-100+ hrs
Number of Playthroughs: 1 (Provided you don't miss any missable trophies)
Number of Missable Trophies: 2 - Liberty City Minute and Driving Mr. Bellic
Glitched Trophies: 3 - Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic, Cut Your Teeth and Wanted
Do Cheat Codes Disable Trophies ?: Yes. "Walk Free", "One Man Army", "Finish Him" and "Cleaned the Mean Streets".
For more info on cheat codes and their effects on trophies, check the following link here (credit to ILikeChurros)
Introduction
Grand Theft Auto IV is not an easy platinum. You will need skill for the likes of "Genetically Superior" and "Fly The Co-Op", determination for the likes of "Endangered Species" and "Key To The City", and a sack load of patience for the likes of "Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic" (herein referred to as AWP) and "Wanted". Offline trophies are varied enough to stop the game from becoming repetitive, yet still asks for some serious dedication to achieving 100% completion of single player mode to unlock "Key To The City". The Multiplayer trophies, if done legitimately, will truly be a remarkable feat but for reasons I will outline in the multiplayer section of this guide, you are strongly recommended to boost "Wanted" and certainly "AWP"
Road Map
Step 1 - Story Mode / Liberty City Minute.
"Liberty City Minute" is a missable trophy and so should be concentrated on first for those that are aiming for a single playthrough for their Platinum. The requirement for this trophy is to effectively finish the story mode in under 30 hours. See the Trophy Description for useful information on how to maximise your chances of doing this, yet it is actually quite a lenient time scale so wont require too much obsessive restarting. There are 88 Story missions in total, that's just a fraction over 20 minutes per mission including the time it takes you to get from one to the next. It is recommended that you end your story run by choosing the 'Revenge' mission thread close to the end. Choosing the 'Deal' mission thread could disable your ability to obtain a trophy during Step 2. Providing you dedicate your time to nothing but story missions, you should be fine.
There will be occasions where your friends will call you throughout this Step asking if you would like to join them in an activity. This would detract you from your goal, yet if you refuse, their 'like' percentage for you will fall, causing them to begin ignoring you when you need them for Step 2. To combat this, accept any invite that comes your way. Their initial will show up as a marker on your map. However, if you call them straight back and cancel the proposed activity, your friend will accept your apologies and your activity will be called off whilst your friends likeness progression will suffer no repercussions.
**NB - One trophy that you would do well to try for during this step would be "One Man Army", see that trophy description for more details**
Step 2 - Key To The City
This entails obtaining 100% game completion of the single player mode. To see what particular side missions and other activities contribute towards 100% completion, see the "Key To The City" Trophy Description. During this step, you will unlock a number of other trophies which coincide with requirements for this trophy. Provided you followed my advice in the last Step and chose the 'Revenge' mission thread over the 'Deal' mission thread, you will have no trouble with the "Driving Mr. Bellic" trophy. This step can be very time consuming but using a checklist and ensuring you are saving upon completion of each individual requirement will help to avoid any instances where you have either overlooked something or actually completed but not saved afterwards. Again, there are some very useful resources found in the actual Trophy Description.
**Note - Do a Manual save after completing each segment that does not auto-save for anything related to "Key To The City"**
Step 3 - Offline Trophies sweep up.
You may find that you obtain some of these trophies during steps 1 and 2. In fact, some are harder to not obtain. "Liberty City (5)" can be a very confusing trophy for some so plenty detail has been put into that Trophy Description in particular. With this being the exception, the rest of the remaining offline trophies are relatively straight forwards.
Step 4 - Multiplayer
Because GameSpy have closed down, Rockstar have issued an update to remove all traces of them from the game. AWP is now much harder because the "Network menu" has been removed.
Last but by no means least are the online trophies. Over the years there have been many strategies come and go for the most efficient way to complete this section but it really comes down to whether you boost or play legit. This guide will cover you for the legit ways of obtaining all online trophies which are not too difficult with the exception of AWP and Wanted (which you are well advised to boost) but if you insist on setting in for the task of unlocking everything above board then look no further.
[PST Would Like to Thank Smartbomb for this Road Map]
The Lost and Damned DLC:
Overview
Estimated trophy difficulty: 2/10
Offline: 5 (5 0 0)
Online: 0 (0 0 0)
Approximate amount of time to get all trophies: 6-8 hours
Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
Number of missable trophies: None.
Glitched trophies: None
Do cheats disable trophies? No
Does difficulty affect trophies? N/A
Welcome back to Liberty City! The DLC is finally here, folks! This time, you'll be playing the role of Jonathan "Johnny" K., a member of the Lost motorcycle gang. This DLC is one part of the two-part "Episodes from Liberty City". The second DLC, of course, is the Ballad of Gay Tony.
Just like the other DLC, this DLC also includes new vehicles, a new radio station, new weapons and, finally, new multiplayer modes. However, in comparison to the sister DLC, the trophies here are much easier to attain; 3 are plot-based and 2 you get from doing simple, yet somewhat time-consuming, tasks. Also, it should be noted that, while there are new multiplayer modes, there are no online/multiplayer trophies.
When you start, the very first thing you should do is press and under "Game" - make sure that the Autosave is on. If you quit the game without enabling saves or even just saving, you'll have to start the DLC all over.
That said, I should add that, as stated in the Overview, GTA IV cheats do work and, as far as this DLC goes, they do NOT disable trophies, so use that to your advantage! Check out this thread: LINK for info on how to activate the cheats (credits go to ILikeChurros for the list). I recommend the following cheats for this DLC (dial the numbers into your cell):
- Full health, armor and ammunition - 4825550100
- Weapons tier 1 - 4865550150
- Remove your wanted level - 2675550100
- Spawn Comet - 2275550175
- Spawn NRG-900 - 6255550100 (This one is very important for the side missions, as you will need a bike for those).
In total, there are 22 core ("main") missions in this DLC, and in terms of 'format' they do not differ much from the original GTA IV. You will definitely run into Niko a few times, and there will be some overlapping in terms of plot between this DLC and the Ballad of Gay Tony, as they both take place around the same time.
For a mission guide, check out this walkthrough from the official wiki: LINK
In addition there are 25 Gang Wars and 12 Bike Races, both are side missions that you may need to do a few times for two of the trophies, though you do not need to win any of the races and the Gang Wars are rather unnecessary but they do make one of the trophies easier to obtain (See Full Chat for more info).
[PST Would Like to Thank DudeInDistress for this Road Map]
The Ballad of Gay Tony DLC:
Estimated Trophy Difficulty: 6/10
Offline: 10
Online: 0
Completion Time: 10-20 hours
Minimum Playthroughs: 1
Missable Trophies: None.
Glitched Trophies: None
Do Cheats Disable Trophies? 1: Gold Star. (See cheats below).
The Ballad of Gay Tony is the second piece of DLC released for GTA IV. You play as Luis Fernando Lopez, a Dominican ex-drug-dealer. He is now the personal bodyguard of Anthony "Gay Tony" Prince, a successful nightclub owner and socialite. After the morose and depressing play in the Lost and Damned, The Ballad of Gay Tony is a return to the high octane days of Vice City and San Andreas.
Bigger guns, better missions and more interesting characters make this an episode worth checking out. Almost a game in itself, it puts many other companies DLC to shame.
STEP 1: The Main Story
The best place to start is the main story missions. Play the game through from beginning to end. You will unlock everything you need along the way, and earn some much needed cash which you can use for weapons later on. There are 26 main story missions that you need to work through. All you have to do is follow up all the initialled icons on the map. If you are in a rush, use the taxi’s to jump straight to them.
At the end of the story, you will have unlocked:
TBoGT: Diamonds Forever
TBoGT: Maestro
STEP 2: Gang Wars
These missions are short and generally involve stealing some form of stash. They can generally be completed in less than ten minutes each, so they won’t take too long. They can get a little boring and repetitive though.
After 25 Gang War missions, you will have unlocked:
TBoGT: Snow Queen
STEP 3: Mission Maximum
Clearing every mission to 100% can take quite a while. It basically doubles the lifespan of the game. But once you get into ‘clearance mode’, they can be rattled off fairly painlessly. It’s a good thing that the missions are good fun though, as replaying bad ones would have been painful. Allow 7 or 8 hours to clear all 26 missions.
After clearing every mission, you will have unlocked:
TBoGT: Past the Velvet Rope
TBoGT: Gold Star
STEP 4: Miscellaneous
All that is left then is to complete the base jumps, win the fighting championship, hit the flag a few times in the driving range, dance in the clubs and perform the ultimate skydive. These can be completed at any time and in any order. They are all relatively quick to complete. It's just a matter of doing them
After tying up the loose ends, you will have unlocked:
TBoGT: Gone Down
TBoGT: Four Play
TBoGT: Bear Fight
TBoGT: Catch the Bus
TBoGT: Adrenaline-Junkie
Cheats: The trophies in TBoGT are not disabled by the use of cheats. The only drawback is that mission scores are disallowed if a cheat is used during that mission. So keep their use strictly between missions only. They can prove handy at times though, just to keep everything moving. Here are a few that could prove useful:
Full Health: 362-555-0100
Full Health and Ammo: 482-555-0100
Lose Wanted Level: 267-555-0100
Spawn FBl Buffalo: 227-555-0100
They should help you to have full Health, Armor and Weapons before starting each mission. The FBI Buffalo is also a handy spawn car. A good all-rounder, it is fast, stable, toll exemption and has four doors so that you can carry passengers. The siren also helps out from time to time.
[PST Would Like to Thank Scavenger for this Road Map]