Grand Theft Auto IV modders are a wonderful bunch. Since GTA 4 launched on PC in December 2008, the community has provided players with countless mods with the potential to alter nearly every aspect of Liberty City. Initially released in August, #WatchDogsIV is one of the craziest. The mod aims to bring the Watch Dogs experience into a Grand Theft Auto setting by adding in the famous Watch Dogs hacking mechanic, altering your character model, and refining police AI and mechanics.

Installing #WatchDogsIV isn't difficult. First you need to grab all the mod files, and then download the mod tool OpenIV. Install the tool, and make sure to link it to your GTAIV directory so that it can properly modify the necessary files. Once it’s ready, you can use OpenIV to install all the necessary mods to turn your stock GTA into WatchDogsIV.

Once all is said and done, what do you get? The most obvious addition is the hacking. You can walk around Liberty City hacking into various electronic objects. Traffic lights can be switch from red to green, barriers can be raised at various intersections, and cameras can be used to look around the city.

Hack ALL the things!

You can also change your character model to Aiden, the protagonist of Watch Dogs. This is more than just a skin - the new model also changes walking and running animations, idle animations, and more. Aiden even whips out his phone when he hacks objects.

Perhaps the most interesting change is to #WatchDogsIV's police. The modders have implemented the Watch Dogs ctOS police scanner. Instead of cops patrolling the city, civilians must now phone in suspicious activity, which triggers a scanner sweep. If you fail to exit that sweep, the police will then appear and chase you in the typical GTA 4 style.

Of course, anytime you mod a game, make sure to copy and back-up any files you might be changing. We also suggest you play through the early tutorial stages of the game before adding any mods, as the tutorial prompts were found to cause hiccups with the #WatchDogsIV mod.

What do you folks think of #WatchDogsIV? Does it make you want to return to Liberty City one more time?

Shawn Saris is a freelancer who dabbles in news and wikis. You can hear about his latest Dota 2 successes and failures over on Twitter