The main character, Niko Bellic, is a veteran from Eastern Europe, looking to get a fresh start. Unfortunately, he faces plenty of opposition, starting with his background as an immigrant. Although his ethnicity is not specified, he’s from Eastern Europe and has to endure derisive taunts because his skills are limited. As he asks his cousin
What am I good at, Roman? What is my trade? I deal in death because that is all that is open to me
He begins in the depths, arriving “fresh off the boat” to Liberty City with nothing to his name after his cousin’s promises of riches ring empty. English isn’t Niko’s first language, and likewise, his first apartment, infested with huge roaches, is a far cry from the American dream. His look of disgust when Roman jumps on the bed with a dead roach on his shoe would be funnier if it wasn’t so depressing. Rather than let the circumstances of being a stranger in a foreign country discourage him, Niko does what he can to adapt, struggling his way up, fighting, robbing, and killing to eke out a living. Throughout every struggle, every strange Liberty City quirk that accosts him, Niko remains true to his personal convictions, a stark contrast to his cousin Roman who lets others push him around. In each mission, there are people who want to exploit Niko, mocking him for being a “yokel,” but even when he’s hired to kill certain people, he’ll often try and make a more humane choice
Niko’s fortunes grow and his status increases with every mission. There are some major setbacks (as when a rival, Dimitri, burns down their apartment and his cousin’s taxi company), but when he climbs back up, it only intensifies the feeling that Niko’s growth is our own. As much as I liked the three protagonists of GTA V, we never experienced that kind of rise, with maybe Franklin as the exception when he gets a fancy new house. The trio do earn more money from their scores, but neither of them were in the financially dire straits Niko was when he began. GTA IV is in some ways a contemporary iteration of the Horatio Alger myth, just drenched in lots of blood
I’m not a war veteran, but a big part of why I relate so much to Niko’s character is because I experienced what it felt like to be an immigrant. When I was around eight, I moved to Seoul, Korea for two years. Even though outwardly I looked Korean, I could not be more foreign as I only half understood the language and couldn’t read or write it at all. Everything felt so different and the culture shock was as confusing to me as when Niko meets characters like the eccentric Brucie Kibbutz for the first time. Other students and neighbors made fun of me for being a Westerner, mocked me for being American, and told me I should go back to my country.
Two years after my arrival, I returned to the States, and needless to say, I was ecstatic to be back. I still love Korean culture, love Korean food, love Korean dramas and films, etc. But those experiences remain, and I’ve always been empathetic to the immigrant’s plight because of that. I know what it feels like to go to a foreign place, feel overwhelmed, and try to adapt using whatever skills you have, traits embodied by Niko. I just wished I’d had as much guts as he did standing up to the bullies.
Niko eventually reveals to his cousin that the main reason he came to Liberty City was to find the man who betrayed his military unit and caused most of his compatriots to be killed
When he finally tracks down the culprit (Darko), Niko almost breaks into tears after he learns they were killed for a mere thousand dollars. At that point, I assumed Niko would either execute him or let him go. Instead, the game turned the decision over to me. I was stunned, surprised that it was my choice and not a scripted event. There’d been smaller instances earlier in the game where the decision to execute or not was left to me, but in something this important? I didn’t know what to do. Which one was the right choice? How would it affect the ending?
Until then, most moral choices I’d experienced in gaming were pretty straightforward, a game mechanic tallying invisible points on some chart that would have some repercussion down the line. Be good, or evil. Rob the poor woman, or help her. This was the first time I’d ever felt tortured by a decision and it was all the more agonizing to realize it was a purely individual choice that had no impact on the gameplay or the story (the two endings would be determined by a choice made in the following mission). Darko, wracked by guilt, had gone crazy, a shell of a man that was a pitiful sight. Should I take justice and execute him?