Someplace alongside the road my household obtained into the behavior of a New 12 months’s Day wander. Typically we might set off alongside the coast, which is simply a brief stroll away in itself. We would not head far, and there’d be no goal in thoughts. It was simply the right manner – chill, ethereal, vivid – to start one other twelve months of regardless of the world had in retailer for us.
This 12 months, we awoke to a storm: rain falling, fences buckling. A wander was out of the query. However then confronted with the prospect of a gray day indoors, my spouse fired up GTA On-line.
And behold! Los Santos was coated in snow. Flakes have been falling by way of the night time sky, the palm bushes have been casting unusual wintery shadows, and the entire world round Pillbox Hill was coated in white. Los Santos felt clear and bizarre and it had that theatrical calm that actual snow can carry to busy locations.
In the end, this was pretty much as good as a wander. As an alternative of rambling alongside the coast, we spent the afternoon bombing round in a sequence of automobiles my spouse referred to as in from Johnny on the Spot. And ultimately we scored a moped and settled into delivering pizzas. What a bizarre recreation this has change into: thirty minutes spent knocking forwards and backwards alongside acquainted streets, stopping in doorways we might by no means observed earlier than and incomes $43k for our time. In Los Santos, delivering pizzas entails some severe financial institution.
However that thought: what a bizarre recreation this has change into. Through the years, GTA On-line has moved from being one thing terrifying and intimidating into one thing that feels a bit like Animal Crossing. In the event you time it proper and if you find yourself with the appropriate individuals, you are not getting headshotted or blown out of the sky. As an alternative, you are going for a cheery wander in a panorama you’ve got come to know properly, come to really feel like you may have some form of stake or possession in it. We drop into GTA On-line today to not do something particular – typically to not do something in any respect. We head in for a similar motive I generally wander into the backyard. Simply to hover in a middle-aged manner and go searching.
This turned out to be the right option to put together for the brand new 12 months: the place was acquainted, however the snow made the whole lot recent and surprising once more. You aren’t getting way more January 1st than that. And afterward that day after I checked into Animal Crossing, which has additionally been white with snow for the previous couple of weeks, I assumed: these locations aren’t that completely different actually. Or at the least, they do not must be that completely different.
However there’s one thing extra. One thing about the best way that video games have modified as they’ve moved on-line. I bear in mind years again my pal obtained an Xbox 360 earlier than Christmas, the 12 months it got here out. I headed over for a night to see what the brand new machine was like, and he had Kameo operating, however all of the pixies and fairies and whatnot have been sporting Santa hats. He defined that they’d accomplished a patch only for Christmas: this was a recreation that had come out earlier within the 12 months, and but right here it was acknowledging that we had reached a sure cut-off date when Santa hats have been abruptly applicable.
I felt that very same shiver of newness after we loaded up GTA On-line and located snow all over the place. Right here was a spot, however a spot shifting by way of time in its personal manner. I’ve identified LA all my life, however I’ve by no means seen it within the snow. What an odd privilege. Blissful new 12 months, all.
