The place: Grand Theft Auto V.‘s iconic city of Los Santos. People walk around outside an apartment building and are probably plotting crimes. Nothing seems out of the ordinary – except a lonely figure. Dressed in suffocating leather pants and a bulletproof vest, he looks prepared for everything and nothing at once. He also looks like Keanu Reeves. He approaches a man nearby and asks – almost begging – for a cigarette. “I need my fucking… I need my fix,” he says with a hazy grater. Then he disappears as he repeatedly slides into a T pose repeating the same phrase over and over. “I’ve got my … I … I … I … I …” This is Grand Theft Auto role-playing, and these days it’s a little bit different than you remember.
GTA role-playing is exactly what it sounds like: players run around GTA Vthe vast open world and pretend to be police officers, criminals and everything in between, living out everyday stories they invented themselves. GTA VThe player-made “No Pixel” role-playing server never went away, however the delirious highlights of the 2019 GTA RP boom feel like a distant memory. However, on the back of No Pixel 3.0 update (which launched last Friday) and the overall popularity of role-playing games on Twitch, GTA RP is back and bigger than ever. Namely: in March 2019, at the peak of the trend, GTA V peaked at 304,053 simultaneous viewers. It is last Sunday awarded 438,350 simultaneous viewers. Even yesterday, which wasn’t as much of a span day as Sunday, it still beat the March 2019 peak with nearly 100,000 viewers.
It’s not hard to see why: first and most clearly, the total viewership of Twitch is now much greater than it was in 2019, meaning that a not insignificant number of viewers is likely GTA RP for the first time. As in 2019, big names have joined the mainstream cast of cops and robbers, with the controversial megastar Félix ‘xQc’ Lengyel portraying the likes of Twitch’s collective id, while at the other end of the spectrum Chance ‘Sodapoppin’ Morris the his revives. subtle brilliant character from last time, Kevin Whipaloo, the man who refuses to commit crime in a city where basically all anyone does is crime. Streamers who have since seen their star rise, such as political juggernaut Hasan Piker, have also joined the after-turn fight in the unruly barrens of Rust RP (Piker plays a character with a hammy Italian accent who “disguises” itself by using a hammy Texan accent).
The appeal is more or less the same as last time: streamers play their own chaotic microdramas and you never know when a big name or infamous character could be a cameo on your favorite streamer’s show. It’s absolutely 100 percent trash television; problematic stereotypes and caricatures abound, as are scenes of Jerry Springer-esque drama. It’s impossible to look away, even if you spend the same amount of time laughing and cringing.
G / O Media can receive a commission
But not like Rust or Minecraft, which are much better at facilitating the willful punching of in-game trees than role-playing games, No Pixel 3.0 includes more role-specific features than ever. Crime and the police on it are far from the only realistic options; now players can also be driving instructors, mechanics, dealer owners, judges and more. Morris’s character, Kevin, runs a burger shop that has largely functioned like a real burger shop, with customers and employees and all. That may sound boring, but then someone appears who plays a wizard in the parking lot to sell Kevin a ‘drink’ that’s really just a bottle of high-fructose corn syrup, and the entertainment value of running a restaurant in a mad city becomes crystal clear.
The greatest example of this dynamic is Burn, a streamer who has been role-playing as Keanu Reeves’ character for the past few days Cyberpunk 2077, Johnny Silverhand. Like it Father last time GTA RP blew up, Burn is this season’s breakout star. His pastiche is excellent; he nails Reeves’ schmaltzy but credible intensity, even turning mistakes – like stabbing an ally – into excuses to protest how he will stop at nothing to take down ‘corpo scum’.
Burn is all about Reeves’ performance and Cyberpunk himself up to 11, generous statements like ‘that’s cyber-fuckedWith a perfect Keanu Reeves voice while somehow not breaking character to laugh at how ridiculous he sounds. In what is now his second most popular clip of all timeBurn pulls this joke to his (logical?) Conclusion, by telling a department corrections officer the name of a person who can help him bring down the evil Arasaka company: Howard. The officer, another player, says he doesn’t know Howard.
“Have you never met Howard?” Burn answers, as Johnny. “What about … Howard Deez Nuts?”
“Oh my god,” says the officer, walking away.
Burn then has his Johnny avatar run and look at the camera, as the discerning one Cyberpunk 2077 theme music suddenly swells.
“Yes,” he says, using an emote to make it look like Johnny is taking off his sunglasses, “I’m Johnny Silverhand, and you just got cyberpunked.”
It’s the dumbest shit I’ve seen in my life, and it made me laugh so hard I’m sure my neighbors two floors up heard me.
Burn isn’t just Johnny Silverhand; he is Johnny Silverhand from the infamous buggy video game Cyberpunk. This means he also excels regularly, barking half sentences over and over while using an emote to T-pose. It’s not exactly an original joke at this point, but what it’s selling is Burn’s performance and timing, as well the games willingness to play. After all, no pixel should not exist. It’s unofficial and player-made, which means it’s prone to over-the-top comedy freakouts too.
One of the most popular clips on Twitch in recent days Burn sees a truck crash into a letterbox, then Lengyel, driving in the back, flies into the street.
“What the hell is it?” Lengyel shouts.
Burn starts saying “You’re screwed up boy” but cuts himself off and starts T-posing saying, “You, you, you, you, you.”
“I think we broke it,” said Lengyel.
But then, without missing a beat, Burn returns to normal walking and gets back into the truck. “I’m all right,” he replies in a tone of vicious irritation. “Just get in the car.” His character will then sit outside the car and float in place. Burn came up with the joke, but it was the game that delivered the punch line.
Rust and Minecraft maybe they messed it up, but GTA RP never went anywhere, and now it’s here to remind everyone who the real king of ridiculously stupid, somehow good performance art is. Really, we’re all cyberpunked, and we’re better at it.