Witchstar

Grand Theft Auto is among the greatest video game series ever. It’s been running for over two decades now and the interest is not waning. A shit ton of installments and repackages, but the series is still beloved and hugely influential. Everyone knows the game, and most have played one or more installments. Currently, an online version is making rounds among long-time and new players. The appeal of the games might stem, to some, from the sheer amount of ludicrous violence a player can inflict in the game but the truth is probably just the absolutely crazy amount of attention to detail and amount of care the developers at Rockstar put into every game. It’s unreal.

Seriously, there are people who dedicate their online presence to discussing the lore of NPCs in the GTA games. It’s mental. Oh yeah, I’m not talking about GTA 4 or 5, I’m talking about the games from the 3D universe. Games developed at the latest in 2004 have near Tolkien levels of attention to detail. By the way, San Andreas is my favorite installment in the series. I’ve had it since 2006’ish. It doesn’t cease to amaze me. Now and again, I discover or rediscover something new about this game. It’s this deep. I only recently noticed the three fresh graves around Catalina’s shack. It’s been a feature of the game all along. They tell you through the character that this is there and I didn’t notice all those years. It’s this attention to detail that brings me back to this masterful work of digital art again and again.

That said, I think I’ve discovered a pretty strange Easter egg Rockstar might’ve left behind that goes unnoticed. I don’t know if I can even call this an Easter egg, it’s a whole omelet or an entire basket of kinder eggs inside actual Easter eggs. It’s basically a mission or a game mode of sorts. Imagine a survival mode in shooter games but in a Grand Theft Auto game. Pretty neat, right? It is! It’s one of those adult jokes and references Rockstar leave in their games.

Is everyone familiar with the myth of the witch in Las Brujas? Well, she exists, but it’s not what you might think it is. In actuality, the witch is Michelle Cannes, one of Carl Johnson’s girlfriends. Or maybe it’s Mary-Beth Maybell, or maybe it’s both. Perhaps even neither. Whomever the mysterious entity is supposed to be, it indirectly affects both Michelle and Mary-Beth.

For those unfamiliar with the Witch, if you drive a police car to Las Brujas or Castile del Diablo in the game, a region around a ghost town that suspiciously carries both names, with your radio on, you might hear the report; “We’ve got hysterical woman in Las Brujas. She’s a witch or something.” You may think this is nothing, just an in-game Easter egg in reference to a myth from Vice City or a joke at the expanse of the location’s name “The Witches” but think about it for a second. Rockstar’s known for some weird shit. Including supernatural shit, even in San Andreas. The Los Santos graveyard gets lit up with a mysterious green light at night. Granted, this is just a lighting scheme error perhaps gone unnoticed by the developers, kind of like the suicidal photographer who was supposed to walk across a bridge.

I thought so too at first, hell; I thought it was on purpose even, symbolizing the great number of fallen Families members buried there, as you can see during the daytime that many tombstones have a green highlight on their edges – But not all. Then it dawned on me, the graffiti tags all over the cemetery appear only at night. All of them, not just the GSF tag on the wall. During the day, there is no graffiti in that cemetery – the ghosts of the dead Families neighbors are painting this cemetery every night as a display of their loyalty. It’s a supernatural Easter egg which is pretty wholesome if you think about it. It’s also proof that Rockstar dabbled in this kind of stuff back in 04’. I know there’s a ghost in GTA 5, but that game came out not too long ago, not seventeen years ago.

Now, what I’m about to share here about my discovery might sound like some hyper broken glitching game or a mod I’ve come up with. Seen the latter being passed around by some loser as a “SECRET BOSS” in an old Mario game of all things. Motherfucker pretended like he resorted to using a cheat engine on Mario back in 97’ and found a mystery level which one could only pass with cheats. It’s too silly. There’s no shame in admitting you’ve dabbled in Mario data and mods; people still play that. It’s fine. I used to mod Little Fighter 2. There’s an entire community around that shit.

Anyway, so I finished yet another round of beating the plot. No cheats, nor saves, nor nothing. Everything was clean. Went for a pretty decent criminal record, too. No needless deaths and robberies. A cookie-cutter campaign. It was pretty gnarly to be franked. Nearly threw my keyboard out of the fucking window with the OG Loc shit. The fucker can’t aim. Anyway, beat the game again and thought it was time to go be a maniac. After some fucking around, I remembered the falling lemmings glitch. Basically – NPCs fall from the sky randomly at certain locations. One such location is the Doherty driving school of San Fierro. However, that one has a special condition to be made. You’ve to aim at an NPC who is conversing with Michelle Cannes at the driving school.

To achieve that, you either have to never have dated Michelle or killed her – thus ensuring a breakup. So, I did that. I go back to the driving school. Michelle wasn’t there, fucked around to burn time, and got wasted a few times by the cops. I remember noticing something kind of fucked up during one chase, as I rode down the streets of San Fierro. Mary-Beth was talking about her dead husbands and eating human meat. I never bothered listening to K-Rose beforehand, so I had no clue about that. I immediately remembered the grave in Bone County, and I thought that was what the Easter egg is.

Anyway, started fucking around with the falling lemmings. Ended up making Michelle from the sky too. She was pretty fucking tough to kill, even as a random NPC. After dicking around for a while like that, I heard her voice actress exclaim one time, “I can make this look like a suicide” and that made me laugh, never heard this line in the game. Pretty edgy, even with all the shitty sex jokes the cops make at each other or CJ. Something diverted my attention from the game for like a second and I hear this loud ass scream coming from my speakers, I turn around and an NPC smashes into the concrete screaming right in front of CJ. It was so in my face I actually was caught by surprise.

Now there’s nothing haunted or weird about this thing. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised. “Holy shit, what the fuck? Hahaha,” kind of moment. Mind you, the NPCs usually fall onto the roof of the driving school while you’ve to watch them from a wall on the side, right next to the building.

Michelle was there too; she was surprisingly aggressive towards me. I tried shooting her, but most weapons didn’t do any actual damage. The same way it goes for the Leatherface or Bigfoot mod characters that only die if you slash their throat with a knife. That was a pretty weird turn of events. I didn’t get to enjoy the fruits of glitch surfing as my Windows decided it wanted to finish an update and restarted the computer mid-game.

Sometime later, remembering the strange occurrence, I made my way back to Doherty and made the lemmings rain again until I heard the line once more. “I can make it look like a suicide.”

And she fucking did!

Michelle fell right on the roof and the NPC fell right on me. It knocked me down and took away a tad of HP. That was pretty intriguing. I immediately started shooting at Michelle, who wouldn’t take any damage. She’d come right to me and start punching me. It didn’t do anything significant to my HP. Even so, she’d follow me as I back out and even the Sniper rifle shots didn’t do anything of note.

I ran around the driving school. One moment Michelle is behind me, voicing out that I’m a maniac and laughing and the next, she was gone.

Weird… that’s what I thought.

It took me a few moments to realize the game had somewhat changed. The weather turned shitty. Perpetually staying either foggy or raining.

The NPCs were all now carrying weapons. Some of them were aggressive and pursued me even as I gravely injured them, while others ran away even though they were shooting other NPCs a second before they noticed me.

Stranger still was the appearance of cops and soldiers in civilian cars. Every second or third car had a cop or a soldier in it, either driving or in the passenger seat. The cops went docile as fuck. I shot at them and nothing would happen. I had to check if I had used any cheats, and no, I didn’t. Not relating to stars, at least. I had the flying cars cheat on.

That’s a pretty funny story, though. I get inside a car with two passengers and one of them is a soldier. The driver pulled me out of the car and started a fistfight. I shot the fucker, got back into the car, and drove off. Just as the car took off the ground, Alice in Chain’s Bones blasted on the radio and one of the NPCs threw himself out of the car, screaming as he flew out to his death.

I flew around with the soldier in the backseat, and he didn’t try to escape. I even slowed down and lowered the car to the ground and yet he never tried to leave. My glitch surfing must’ve broken the game, were my thoughts. Then, as I finally crashed my car into a burning mess, the soldier tried to escape the burning wreck, but he didn’t make it in time. I saw his avatar get plastered on a tree as the car went in fireworks.

I ran back to the road and went for a cop car to steal. One cop got out and finally attacked me, so I killed him. The other cop switched to the driver’s seat and drove in reverse and then started driving at me. I sniped at him, and his head exploded. The car halted for a second, then went after me.

A ghost police car was on my trail. It wouldn’t leave. Even when it caught fire, it still followed me mindlessly. Now I know this happens sometimes, but this kept happening again and again in this save. I was killed by an angry, violent cowboy around Shady Creeks and when I respawned, the NPCs were on my ass again. Some trying to kill me, others running away. Cops whom I shot from the distance in their vehicles just kept on driving after me as if possessed by ghosts.

Eventually, I got tired and saved the game.

Turns out the mod was stuck. This much I figured out when I started the game again a few days later. Just as I leave my safe house, a mob of NPCs and a few cops are after me, guns blazing. I shoot them all down, including the cops – yet no stars appear.

Holy fuck, the game must’ve been fucked, but Nah. It was fine. My other saves were working normally, no weird shit. No weird glitching of skins or murderous or suicidal civs.

Funnily enough, I recall seeing some taxi driver literally drive his car off a bridge into a watery grave as he saw me running his way in that one save.

So, I got back to this save, and I started exploring what else is new in there. The civs leave behind cars as they either panic or start searching for me. Not all cops care about crime anymore. Civs are actually attacking cops randomly and vice versa. The weather is always foggy or storming in San Fierro, Los Santos, and the Greener rural areas while sandstorms are endless in Las Venturas and the desert region. Planes also frequently crash to the ground, and cars randomly explode. Strangest of all is Mr. Trenchcoat, who virtually walks in circles until he sees the player and then viciously attacks him, with something of super strength in his punch if he’s unarmed.

The moment I heard his speech patterns though, I figured something was up – He said, “she knows” rather than “they know.” He also mumbled something about a “witch” – that caught me off guard.

I was following such a Mr. Trenchcoat when I saw her – Michelle, in fucking Las Payasadas, at the edge of the map. Near the giant chicken robot. I ran towards her, but she disappeared – walking behind the massive cock.

The next thing I know, Mr. Trenchcoat and other civs are trying to beat me to death.

Zombified to all hell and intent to murder or flee me. Something had to be up. The whole thing got me thinking. A witch and a “she” instead of the usual alien talk, Michelle walking around in weird locations, hard to kill, peds are weird, cops are weird, the weather is weird. Something was definitely up to something big.

Saved the game.

Started another save, went to Michelle’s, killed her, got to Doherty, and started fucking with lemmings. I made them rain for hours, Nah for days, actually sometimes getting the weird mod, sometimes giving up beforehand. It took me a couple of weeks, but eventually; I got it. Six times to drop the same ped from the sky, six different peds, and on each sixth drop, I had to drop and kill Michelle with the ped. Or try at least, because on the sixth fall of Michelle – she’s nigh unkillable and escapes.

Now, then I figured out why six different NPCs, besides the whole 6-6-6 number of the beast thing. Bitch had six lovers, all dead today. That’s when it hit me like a ton of crack cocaine bricks. Mary-Beth Maybell. Six Husbands, all dead.

All sick and elderly.

Michelle likes fat dudes.

Fat means sick and elderly men have fat dad bods.

Fuck…

It all became clear. Running after Michelle was fucking pointless. I got into a BF Injection and turned the radio towards K-Rose. Songs were playing, bitch wasn’t talking. Yeehaw, witch bitch,

BUSTED!

My car got crushed by a rocket going off at a car nearby me. I narrowly escaped the wasting. Fucking nearly gave me a real-life heart attack as it came from nowhere in the night sky when my vision was obscured by a violent storm.

I ran to a cop car. It was the closest one I could find, the rocket launcher behind me, shooting like a blind idiot – missing. I drove right over him. The glorious screams and crunching of his bones were music to my ears.

Then the police dispatcher goes, “We’ve got hysterical woman in Las Brujas. She’s a witch or something.”

I knew where I had to go, Las Brujas. I got there, just barely, lost four cars, a helicopter and all of my nuts. I am so grateful to the hotdog stations at random locations. They are lifesavers. I get to Las Brujas, and it’s a literal ghost town. Dead, silent.

Worst of all, the weather is normal. Purple sky, quiet. I stand there, confused, trying to figure out what the fuck is even going on with this game anymore, then out of nowhere, I’m hit by a car.

There aren’t supposed to be any peds in there. It’s a ghost town with like two residential buildings and a chapel. Before I know it, I am slammed by yet another car. Six peds come out, armed to the teeth. They’re shooting me, and I’m with no ammo. I ran around like a chicken until I finally got one of them with my knife and then take his shotgun. Six shells later, the peds are dead. Again, I am alone. I take a second to breathe, and a monster truck slams into me and runs over me, back and forth. I’m low on HP. Michelle comes out with Mr. Trenchcoat from the truck. One Super punch later, I’m wasted.

I respawned. The mod was still running; I race back to fucking Las Brujas. It’s a sandy mess. Michelle’s not there, and she doesn’t show up.

Took me a while, but eventually, I realized her appearances were random in nature. The witch can appear wherever she pleases. Mike Toreno’s UFO map didn’t help for shit. It’s just a bunch of random locations. She was in one of them. Pure coincidence – truth be told. Speaking of Truth, he had nothing to do with her either. He was on that government shit in the secret military base – just very delusional about things.

Some places I’ve caught her at were at Ganton, the Panopticon, the top of the Los Santos Tower, the burned house in Montgomery, Smoke’s crack house, which is probably how she took over the minds of all NPCs. By selling drug hexes. Man would’ve been awesome to hear that phrase in Tenpenny’s voice. Even met her at the Epsilon farm once, but when I did, the lights turned purple. She’s fucking with cultists too!

One time I was by the seaside cave when it emanated a weird purple light drawing me in. Once I entered the cave, someone with a sniper rifle shot me down. It was so cruel. Is this how the NPCs feel when I do that to them? Uhhh damn.

Ironically, the last time we met, I ended up killing her right by what I presume is her bobcat. Her body went straight down into the mass grave she left behind. Nearly killed me that time too, with her endless horde of mindless NPC slaves. It all started with a flaming cop car smashing into me, a civ inside. I ran off and it blew up. The next thing I know, a bunch of random-ass cars showed up and peds got out and started shooting at me, firing everything from pistols to rocket launchers. I armed myself to the teeth, but the onslaught was so great I had to exhaust all of my arsenals on this armada. I set up explosives and blew them up by the dozens and yet they kept coming, civs, cops, soldiers, super punching Mr. Trenchcoat, who accidentally sent some of his co-slaves into orbit. Had to 1v1 him with my karate.

At the end of it all, it was just me and her, but I had no ammo left and the knife wasn’t doing shit. Just as I was about to lose hope. The tension was getting high; I felt myself getting tense, and the adrenaline was coursing through my veins. This whole thing was ridiculously exciting. Dreadfully so, I thought I was going to lose the bitch witch again, and it was a truly frightening thought, I had worked so hard to get this far, but in the end, it almost didn’t matter. Thankfully, a miracle happened – a tanker flew in, smashing his container right into me, sending me flying before the force tipped it over, causing it to catch fire and explode. It was an omen - I had to resort to creative methods too.

Dropped a shit ton of Vortexes all around her until she got stuck in between them and then I activated the most glorious cheat of all.

Ten or so times.

Allcarsgoboom.

The glorious signs of our battle, one truly for the ages, dotted the landscape, the remnants of a crashed helicopter flopping about, dying flames and a pitched black patch of soil around the mass grave. Finally, I’ve done it; I owned the witch, and I owned Rockstar by beating their game. I’ve become death, the destroyer of 3D gods.

The screen went black for like six point nine seconds and I thought the game had crushed but lo-and-behold turns out I was in a cutscene back in Doherty, walking into the driving school. Michelle was there with some other NPC and she asked Carl out.

We both said, Oh hell no!

Carl pulled out his dual micro-SMGs and shot her dead, filled with holes. She went down like she went down. Carl then walked out of the driving school and the mission accomplished music played in the background. I was back at Doherty; the game was back to normal.

Turns out it was a secret mission and as a bonus, there’s a permanent bloodstain inside the driving school in that save now. Even though Michelle’s normal, not that I’m messing with that ever again.

Would recommend, though

Six out of fucking nine.