You’re driving through the rain in Broker, Niko Bellic’s leather jacket looks slightly too shiny, and you remember it. That weird, metallic clanging sound. The absolute chaos of a Schafter flying 500 feet into the air because you touched a piece of playground equipment.
Honestly, it's kind of wild that we’re still talking about this. But the GTA 4 swingset location is basically a holy site for anyone who grew up on the RAGE engine’s weirdest quirks. It isn't just a glitch. It’s a rite of passage.
Most people call it the "Swingset of Death" or the "Car Cannon." Whatever your name for it, the physics behind it are still some of the most hilariously broken things Rockstar ever accidentally shipped. If you’re looking to ruin a perfectly good Sultan or just see how far the Euphoria engine can stretch Niko’s limbs before they snap, you need to know exactly where to go.
Where is the GTA 4 swingset location exactly?
Don't go wandering around every park in Liberty City. You’ll just get frustrated. There are technically a few spots where this happens, but the "Main" one—the one you've seen in a thousand YouTube videos from 2008—is tucked away in a very specific corner of the map.
You want to head to Firefly Projects in south Broker.
If you look at your map, it’s that cluster of brick apartment buildings right near the bottom right edge of the main landmass. There’s a little park area sandwiched between the buildings. You’ll know you’re there when you see two identical swingsets sitting on a patch of dirt and grass.
The "Good" Swingset vs. The "Bad" One
There are actually two sets of swings here. People always ask which one is better.
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- The West Swingset: This is the legendary one. It’s got more clearance.
- The East Swingset: It works, but you're way more likely to just hit the brick wall of the apartment building behind you.
Basically, stick to the one on the left if you're facing the buildings. You want as much open sky as possible because, trust me, you’re going to need it.
How to actually trigger the car cannon
It’s not as simple as just driving into it. Well, sometimes it is, but if you want that "launch across the entire bay into Algonquin" kind of velocity, you need a strategy.
- Find the middle pole. The glitch is caused by the collision of your vehicle and the vertical support beams.
- Reverse into it. For some reason, backing up into the swing usually gets better results than driving forward. Maybe it’s the way the rear bumper clips into the physics mesh.
- The "Wiggle." Once your bumper is touching the pole, just gently accelerate or reverse. You’ll hear a metallic tink-tink-tink sound. That’s the game engine panicking.
- Wait for the snap. Eventually, the overlapping hitboxes will create an infinite loop of force. The game tries to "push" the car out of the swing, but because the swing is an immovable object with "springy" physics properties, the force multiplies.
And then? Boom. You’re a pigeon.
Why does the GTA 4 swingset location do this?
It’s easy to just say "it’s a glitch," but the technical reason is actually pretty cool. GTA 4 was the first time Rockstar used the Euphoria engine for character reactions and a highly complex physics system for vehicles.
The swingset was designed to be interactive. It has "limits" on how far it can move. When you wedge a car—a massive object with its own complex collision box—into the swing's space, the engine calculates a massive "correction" force to separate the two objects.
Because the swing is coded as a fixed part of the environment, it won't move. The car, however, is dynamic. The engine basically says "get this car out of here with the power of a thousand suns," and since the collision doesn't resolve instantly, that force stacks frame by frame until the car is launched.
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Other "Hidden" Swingset Locations
Firefly Projects isn't the only place where the laws of physics go to die. If you’re bored of Broker, try these:
- Tudor, Alderney: Near the Globe Oil gas station, there’s another playground. This one is arguably more dangerous because of the surrounding fences. If you get a good launch here, you can actually clear the water and land in the middle of the city.
- Northwood, Algonquin: There's a smaller park here, though the launches aren't nearly as consistent.
The Best Vehicles for the Glitch
Not all cars are created equal in the eyes of the Swingset of Death.
If you take a Bus or a Yankee (the big box truck), the results are chaotic but usually slow. The weight keeps you from getting true height.
The Infernus or the Turismo are the community favorites. They are low to the ground, which lets them wedge "under" the swing’s physics bounds more easily. If you really want to see something scary, try taking a NRG-900 motorcycle. You will die. Instantly. Niko will be ejected at Mach 1 and usually hits a building before the camera can even track him.
What most people get wrong about the glitch
There’s a persistent myth that Rockstar "patched" the swingset in the Complete Edition or the PC updates.
They didn't.
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They actually couldn't without fundamentally changing how the environment objects interact with the physics engine. It's built into the DNA of the game. Even in 2026, if you boot up a vanilla copy of GTA 4 on a PC or via backwards compatibility on a console, that swingset is still there, waiting to ruin your day.
Another misconception is that you need a specific mod. You don't. This is 100% "vanilla" behavior. In fact, if you use too many physics mods, you might actually break the glitch by making the collisions too accurate.
Safety Tips (For Niko, not you)
If you're playing The Ballad of Gay Tony, always bring a parachute. If you get launched from the GTA 4 swingset location in the base game, you’re basically just praying for a water landing. In the DLC, you can bail out at the peak of the arc and glide across the entire map. It’s actually a pretty efficient way to travel if you don't mind losing your car.
Making the most of your launch
To get the absolute best results today, make sure your frame rate isn't too high. If you're on a modern PC running at 144Hz, the physics can sometimes get "stiff." Capping the game at 60fps—or even 30fps if you’re feeling nostalgic—actually makes the swingset glitch more violent.
Once you’ve mastered the Firefly Projects location, try bringing a friend in multiplayer (if you're using a workaround like GTAConnected). Having two cars touching the swing at the same time creates a "force multiplier" that can sometimes crash the game—but when it works, it's the funniest thing you'll see in Liberty City.
Head over to the southern tip of Broker, find the brick projects, and look for the swings near the basketball courts. Position your rear bumper against the middle pole of the left-hand swingset and slowly reverse until the camera starts shaking.