grand theft auto 5 exist personal computer There’s no shortage of water modsm, so turning Los Santos into a sunken metropolis should be easy. But what I got was an aquatic, corpse-heavy nightmare that not even James Cameron could exploit.
At the risk of sounding like an old-school Bond villain, I’ve always been interested in submerging the world of GTA V. When the PlayStation 3 was jailbroken about 10 years ago, modders discovered they could interfere with its working.
I watched a YouTube video of such a mod in action when the sea level rose so high that only the tops of buildings were visible. It’s an impressive and disturbing sight, reminiscent of some big-budget disaster movies. However, since I didn’t want to risk getting banned from the PlayStation Network, I never got around to experiencing the fun of dank Los Santos.
That was, until the other week, when YouTube’s algorithm threw up another underwater GTA 5 video, this time from the PC version of the game. This long-forgotten idea resurfaced, and after finding a mod that worked (I drew a blank with the first mod), Grand Theft Auto V: Drowning it has started.
Admittedly, a large part of the confusion is due to my own blatant stupidity, though I should add that it’s not the general populace who have turned into fish food. I’ve disabled pedestrians and traffic, so in the end it’s just Trevor, Franklin and Michael who suffer. most. There are some exceptions, but I’ll get to those later.
The good news is that the latest version of GTA 5 prevents you from surfing the Internet with mods installed, so I’m not in danger of being banned. The bad news is that while I was happily installing “500m Flood, Calm”, I wasn’t really thinking about how deep the water would get.
I want to blame Subnautica for my stupidity, because it makes me think there will be oxygen machines to replenish the lungs of Michael and colleagues, but that’s a very corny excuse. The truth is, I thought 500 meters sounded like a cool round number, so I left.
If I had done the most extensive research I would have known it was a third of the Eiffel Tower. In fact, if I thought about it for a minute, this whole mess could have been avoided. It probably won’t be that much fun, though.
So instead of surfacing, surrounded by the skyscraper peaks of Lost Santos, Michael dies before he sees the light of day. Maybe I’m not swimming fast enough, I thought, so I started hitting the sprint button. Again, it didn’t end well.
Franklin’s performance was not much better, and while I thought Trevor would be too angry to drown, the full screen of WASTED proved me wrong. He did get me closest to the surface when he respawned on Mount Gordo, but not close enough.
At this time, a sensible person should go back and lower the water level, but I am determined not to give up. If the worst happens, I can always use one of GTA 5’s cheats to spawn a mini-sub and continue my underwater adventure.
But no, I kept going, doing the same thing and expecting different results. I’ve found that if I switch between the three characters, as their lungs empty and their health starts to deplete, I can reset their internal drowning meter. I continued that way for a while, but then, when I turned to Michael, something different happened.
Specifically, a car was floating in his driveway (the water was too murky to tell if it was his) and when I swam to check it fell on top of him. This didn’t kill him, but was enough to convince me to try a different strategy.
One of the perks of having so many characters die before your eyes is that you can experience scenes where they switch roles underwater as time goes on. I watched as Michael silently waved to his tailor, all he could say was bubbles, and then control of the game was handed over to me.
Another time I laughed myself silly as he finished his lunch and said goodbye to his wife Amanda, who also sat down and drowned not long after. Yes, I am a horrible person. Oddly, his son Jimmy seems content to keep playing his video games and doesn’t care that his console is now water-cooled.
Franklin also doesn’t seem to notice that his bag of potato chips has drifted away, or that the strip club he left might be handing out scuba to dancers. Where’s Trevor? Like the unmodified GTA5V, his antics are both amusing and unsettling.
In addition to catching him in the bathroom and shaking Aquaman’s hand, he also managed to get into an altercation with two underwater doormen. I say “fight”, but probably they just don’t want to drown, but once I start swinging as Trevor, there’s no going back.
I finally figured it out, pulled up the console, and hit BUBBLES to summon the Kraken mini-submarine. It materialized and fell on Michael immediately. I switched roles and tried again. This time, it fell on Franklin. It’s not fatal, but definitely demeaning.
After a few tries, I got the hang of dodging. I swam to the hatch…nothing. Why? Because when spawning a submarine under “normal” working conditions, in flooded Los Santos, doing so anywhere other than the surface will turn into an inoperable wreck.
I wanted to curse Rockstar’s name, but then I realized how ridiculous that would be. Life is hard enough for the QA department, and it’s ridiculous to expect them to compensate some future user-created mods.
So I admit defeat and adjust the water level to a more reasonable 100 meters. This gave me the experience I’ve been craving. Although I don’t want to think about how much Franklin, Michael and Trevor I’ve been through. I surfaced, jumped into a hastily summoned submarine, and explored the eerie depths of the city. Rapture, eat your heart out.
can i be alone of course not. And just like that, after reaching maximum water depth (and cheating using short-term invulnerability), Michael is torn to pieces by the sharks. I don’t know where it came from – I know this mod doesn’t spawn sea creatures. Maybe it’s GTA 5’s own water god, angry at me for daring to control the ocean.
but now? I think, for future GTA 5 outings, I’ll stick to land.
