UPDATE: Grand Theft Auto V Beta Elements

Hey, what is this? No artistic headline? No subheading? No thumbnail? Is this a product of my descent into madness after the second Joker compounded with the election?! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!

Ahem. Hope that was an accurate impression of you right now. I have a post about my many writing projects in the works, but that one will take some time, so say hello to my very first status update! As a matter of fact, this post fits into two brand-new categories: status updates to earlier posts and shorter “mini-posts”, for lack of a better term. If I don’t have the muster in me for a rant spanning many, many, many paragraphs, I can post something short and sweet if that’s what I feel like doing! This is a special day for you, dyslexics! Let’s forget about the potential political shitfest in our wake, since it’ll probably be a lot less chaotic than it feels right now!

In fact, for the first update on this blog, why not make it a follow-up to the very first post? I mean, it does surround beta content, which was technically the topic of the second post, but that was part two of a two-parter, so you get what I mean. I hope. There, I added a whole section devoted to the cut content of the 3D GTA Trilogy during the early and mid-2000s—a trilogy I had no lasting admiration for aside from San Andreas, which left me fuming with all the great unused material it put on the chopping block—but that was far from the only era in the franchise with a messy cutting room floor. GTA IV had its own, between a map concept the size of the whole New York state, silenced weaponry, an actual Russian actor from Behind Enemy Lines for Niko, different business names, a zombie apocalypse mode, a barbershop for character customization, and I would hope alternate dialogue where Niko doesn’t use a gay slur in Russian. In fact, GTA VI probably also will, given it’ll be the first game since San Andreas to take place across an entire state. GTA V, though? I no doubt understated its impressive vault of cut material by simply not discussing it at all.

You can do your own research at your leisure, but having kept track of the marketing since the first trailer, I was far from the only one to notice how drastically Michael, the protagonist I connect the most with, was aged down between then and the final release. You see him, as well as Franklin and Trevor, up close for the first time in the second trailer, and whereas he was later remodeled to look younger and more handsome, Rockstar Games really doubled down on their enduring interest in boomer protagonists in prerelease material. For as old and crusty as they initially made him, quite a few mods have already restored him as such, with only the most recent release here by a modder named “the hope of future” seeming to do so with a borderline religious devotion. If you feel like the graphics weren’t sufficiently enhanced for the PS5 and Xbox Series X port, here’s a comparison between Michael from the second trailer to my own modded copy with the mod installed. These screenshots were taken with VisualV and ReShade, in case you thought only NaturalVision Evolved was capable of taking this 2013 title to the current generation.

Now, you probably remember my weird Sonic developments post here, where I mentioned how I’m able to enjoy a fangame called Sonic World in all its former glory after the source code was dumped. Officially. As in, by the people who made the game. Well, just a couple years ago, the full GTA V source code was leaked onto GitHub by… uh… well, certainly not any official or even legal means, and while I doubt it’s been scrubbed entirely given the nature of the interwebs, I have no intentions of seeking it out, out of both respect for the developers and fear of stumbling upon any private Princess Robot Bubblegum material that may or may not traumatize me more than the fictional show itself already has. Regardless, I never heard about or gave much thought to it until I happened upon a fairly basic texture mod by Alex106, a creator with some of the finest modifications for this game under his belt, including beta restoration mods. Titled “Frozen Trevor”, its intention is not as some random joke, but rather in reference to a supposed unused version of the “Kill Trevor” ending, which directed me to a slew of Reddit posts that offered screenshots of the source code. The original version of “Something Sensible” ended with Michael knocking Trevor’s pickup into a liquid nitrogen truck instead of a gasoline tanker and smashing him to death with a 2×4 instead of blowing him up. Yes, the final version feels significantly more apt. And less needlessly gory. Meanwhile, another post shared visual evidence for a preliminary take on “The Time’s Come”—the “Kill Michael” ending—which suggested that the mission stayed the same aside from Michael falling onto the spinning propellers of a police chopper. You know, as if that ending even being an option isn’t preposterous enough.

Of course, as someone with zero prior knowledge of or experience with the source code, this seems rather legit. Yet, most users also seem to agree on there being a pre-revision third ending included, even if I’ve yet to find any visual evidence. Reportedly, it was going to feature Franklin dying as opposed to all three protagonists making it through alive, with Lamar taking his place à la Red Dead Redemption. This was apparently even confirmed by Lamar’s voice actor as having been the first intention prior to some undisclosed legal issues being raised regarding… I don’t know. Lamar being able to get Franklin’s clothes and haircuts? Guess that would’ve been an ego thing with his actor. Either way, before I get back to reformatting ElectroNuke and writing Episode Solaris of Shadow the Hedgehog: The Recollected Cut, I’ve used the Rockstar Editor to recreate all three endings as screenshots. These make use of the Frozen Trevor and Beta Michael mods while taking place at the same locations as the final endings—the oil fields for the first, the power plant for the second, and Devin Weston’s mansion for the third. Granted, I had Michael smash Trevor with a sledgehammer instead of a 2×4 due to there being no suitable wooden plank prop in the game and a sledgehammer being a far more appropriate tool to smash ice with.

Okay, that should do it for tonight. I feel like it went on way longer than I thought it would. So, for now, as my now-dead favorite film protagonist once said, “Th-th-th-th-th, that’s all, folks!”

Oh. By the way, I can’t pull you out of your recent depression, but I can show you Beta Michael with a beard. The impression of that should last the next four years.