GTA 5 has become a way of life. One player took this as a challenge and managed to complete the whole game without taking a single point of damage. Another took exception.
Players can’t get enough GTA 5. With the continued success of GTA Online, and recent news that GTA 5 is one of the most profitable entertainment products ever, it has become a cultural phenomenon.
One of the things that draws players to the game is that you can do pretty much whatever you want. You can complete the main story arc, go on horrendous killing sprees, or even get ridiculously high on peyote and expand your mind by transforming into a killer whale. Now that’s the kind of open world game I’m talking about.
Despite this far more appealing option, some players have committed themselves to performing extraordinarily difficult tasks in the game, generally for the purpose of gaining admiration and fame online. One such player is DarkViper. Since early 2020 he has been trying to perform a run of GTA 5 without taking a single point of damage (he starts from the beginning again if he does). Needless to say, it has so far proved challenging.
GTA 5, while not famous for its level of difficulty, is full of things that can hurt you. Many of the missions involve heists and shootouts that are unavoidable if you wish to complete the main story. On top of this, the world is full of somewhat disaster-prone AI which can make crossing a road, or even obeying traffic rules, a perilous task.
I can’t even imagine my frustration if, after let’s say seven hours of carefully playing and surviving countless gunfights, a bugged out civilian decided to t-bone my car, ending another marathon effort in defeat and tragedy. My controller wouldn’t survive the encounter… that much is almost certain.
When streamers get salty
I digress. So after many months and many failed attempts, DarkViper was pipped to the post by relative newcomer UnNameD. The salty jealousy that followed is a reminder of how seriously some people take games.
In a since deleted post that is still available on Reddit, DarkViper blames his need to entertain people, other obligations, and the fact that UnNameD didn’t share his GTA 5 strategies with him, for not coming in first. The post is long, whingy and pretty vindictive:
“One could imagine your completion of this run would have been a relief, this is not so. Ultimately all the suffering I went through now matters far less. An achievement I coveted can now never be obtained regardless of what I do. The eons that I have fallen behind in speedrunning, potentially to never recover, were spent on a quest that can never be completed.”
Reportedly, UnNameD was then banned from DarkViper’s Discord, of which they were previously a contributing member. Apparently, UnNamed posted a video of his completed GTA 5 run onto the Discord channel, which resulted in DarkViper’s outburst.
It all seems pretty childish, but I guess it should be understood that feelings tend to run hot when you have spent that long trying to accomplish something.
I want to get back into speedrunning but I will need to finish OHKO first.
— DarkViperAU (@DarkViperAU) May 18, 2021
A tweet from yesterday suggests that, despite his frustration, DarkViper plans to continue his attempt to beat GTA 5 without taking any damage.
