The 2girls1comp collective strikes back with a new groundbreaking mod for Grand Theft Auto V titled Meanwhile in Los Santos.
Marco De Mutiis and Alexandra Pfammatter’s new mod utilizes GTA V’s expansive open world environment to spotlight the inner lives of NPCs that normally serve purely functional roles for the player. As the player drives or walks around Los Santos, the camera suddenly shifts perspectives, cutting away from the playable protagonist to focus instead on a random NPC. The player observes them frozen in place, trapped in an introspective moment as internal monologues and existential musings appear as subtitle text.
These inner dialogues touch on themes of free will, identity, purpose, and the NPCs’ perception of themselves as fictional entities within a simulated Grand Theft Auto world. The writings pull verbatim quotes from real world Twitter rants about simulation theory, giving the NPCs a meta awareness of their own artificial construct. This blurs the lines between the “real” physical realm we inhabit and Los Santos’ virtual reality. The project is somewhat reminiscent of Miranda July’s Extras and Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author.
From a gameplay perspective, Meanwhile in Los Santos adds unpredictable narrative texture to Rockstar Games’ open world, requiring players to patiently sit with and contemplate the inner turmoil of NPCs they would otherwise ignore. It also formally challenges the dominant and singular perspective players embody when controlling GTA’s violence-prone antihero protagonists. Losing control to focus on an NPC injects more humanity and plurality of experiences into Los Santos.
The mod also makes a sly sociopolitical statement, appropriating the controversial NPC meme that depicts people who lack autonomy of thought as scripted video game characters. Meanwhile in Los Santos suggests that dismissing others as mindless NPCs only serves to suppress legitimate interiority and different kinds of agency. It argues for more empathy, even for fictional denizens like those occupying the satirical world of GTA V.
