How GTA 4 Cheats Actually Work

Most people think cheat codes are just button mashing to get weapons and invincibility. They're more complicated than that. The button sequences only work if you're not currently engaged in a mission, and even then, timing matters. Press too fast and the input doesn't register. Wait too long between buttons and it times out. I wasted about ten minutes once trying to trigger health regen because I kept hitting the directional buttons too aggressively on my controller. Slow, deliberate presses fixed it. The console versions rely entirely on button combinations. PC uses the cheat system menu accessible through the pause screen. There's no universal "enter" method across all platforms, which is worth knowing if you borrowed a game from someone who owns a different system. Here are the working sequences for the main platforms:

PlayStation 3:

  • Health: R, X, R, X, R, X, Circle, Circle
  • Armor: R, Square, L1, R, X, L1, Square, Circle, X
  • Max Wanted Level: R, Circle, L1, L1, R, L1, L1, L1
  • Min Wanted Level: L1, L1, L, R, R, Circle, R, Circle
  • All Weapons (Set 1): R, L1, X, R, L1, Circle, R, L1
  • All Weapons (Set 2): L1, R, L1, R, L, X, L, R
  • Infinite Ammo: R, Circle, X, X, L1, R, Circle
  • Invincibility (5 min): R, Circle, L1, L1, Square, X, L1
  • Never Wanted: L1, L1, Circle, R, X, R, X, X
  • Fast Swim: R, R, L1, R, X, Triangle, L1, R
  • Explosive Bullets: Circle, L1, R, R, R, Square, R, L1
  • Explosive Melee: L1, L1, Circle, X, L1, Circle, X, X
  • Explosive Car Shots: R, Circle, L1, R, Circle, R, L1, L1

Xbox 360: PC (Enter via Phone or Pause Menu): Open the cheat menu by going to Contacts and entering the number, or open the pause menu and selecting the cheat option. Type these in:

Get the Full Details

Grand Theft Auto Iv Cheat Codes Ps4
Grand Theft Auto Iv Cheat Codes Ps4
  • OCTGNJP - Health
  • FOSSILFUN - Armor
  • HELLNO - All Weapons (Set 1)
  • BUZZOFF - All Weapons (Set 2)
  • BANGBANG - Explosive Bullets
  • POWERUP - Invincibility
  • ASDKRJHM - Max Wanted Level
  • BAGUVIX - Infinite Health
  • CVWKXL - Instant Kill
  • KANGAROO - Super Jump
  • HOPTOIT - Fly Mode (toggle)

I should flag something important that almost nobody mentions. When you enter cheat codes, your game disables the auto-save feature. That means progress can be lost if the game crashes or you quit without manually saving. I learned this the hard way after spending three hours on a story mission, triggering the armor cheat, and then having the game freeze. No save existed. Now I manually save before every cheat activation. It takes five seconds and has saved me more than once. There's also a gotcha with the invincibility cheat. It lasts exactly five real-time minutes, not five minutes of gameplay time. If you pause the game, the timer keeps running. So if you want longer invincibility, you need to cycle the cheat by turning it off and on again mid-timer. Press the same button combination to toggle it off, wait a second, then re-enter. This doesn't reset the five-minute window each time though — each activation gives you another five minutes. I figured this out accidentally while trying to fight through multiple waves of police after using the max wanted level cheat. It turned a losing situation into a manageable one. Another practical issue: some cheats override others. If you activate infinite ammo and then trigger the all weapons cheat, your ammo reserves reset to default. The weapon selection changes, but the bullet count goes back to normal. So sequence matters. Do invincibility and infinite ammo first, then weapons if you need them.

For PC players, the cheat system is somewhat forgiving about typos. You have a few seconds to correct a wrong letter before it fails. On consoles, there's no correction window. One wrong button and you restart the entire sequence. This is why I recommend PC if you're not confident about the sequences. The margin for error is genuinely wider. One more thing worth noting: the wanted level cheats don't stack cleanly. If you use the max wanted level cheat and then trigger the min wanted level cheat, it drops you to zero stars instead of one. There's no middle ground between the two commands. If you want a specific wanted level, you're stuck with either maximum or nothing, which is a frustrating limitation for anyone trying to farm cash in certain side activities.