The Magic Of Swapping Characters In Open World Games
If you have ever swapped from Michael to Trevor in Grand Theft Auto 5 and watched the camera rocket into the sky before dropping you into a totally different life, you know how powerful that moment is. It feels like teleporting between stories in real time. Marvel's Spider Man 2 on PS5 and PC captured a similar vibe as it lets you jump between Peter Parker and Miles Morales across New York City.
For many players, these games are the standout examples of character switching done right. It keeps the open world feeling alive, lets missions play out in unexpected ways, and makes every swap feel like a cinematic cut without ever taking full control away from you.
What most people do not know is that Rockstar already had plans for something like this way back in 2004 with Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. The idea was cut before release because of hardware limits. But the code traces were never fully removed. That forgotten feature has now been revived by a modder, and the result is a fascinating look at what San Andreas could have been.
The Lost Multi Protagonist Dream Of San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas launched on PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox, and it was already pushing those consoles extremely hard with its giant map, cities, countryside, and loads of systems. Behind the scenes, Rockstar originally planned multiple playable characters and real time switching, not entirely unlike what GTA 5 would deliver almost a decade later.
Years later, a community member known as Silent dug into the game files and discovered signs that this system had once existed in some form. The most interesting clue was related to the built in two player mode. San Andreas actually has a native co op option, but it is pretty limited and most players either never touched it or forgot it existed.
Fast forward to today, and modder Kaizo has taken that old discovery and used it as the foundation for something new: the Real Multiple Protagonists mod. Instead of being a basic co op tweak, this mod rewires the game so that the second player is treated as a fully independent protagonist you can swap to.
According to Kaizo, the secret is an unused mechanic in Rockstar's own code that lets the game shift the main character priorities from CJ to another player entity. It was there all along, just never turned into a full feature. Rockstar left the skeleton of character switching in the game; the modder simply brought it back to life.
There are limits though. Real Multiple Protagonists only works in free roam. There is no mission code and likely never will be, which means you are not playing a totally rewritten story campaign with several leads. Instead, you are getting a powerful sandbox tool that lets you treat San Andreas as a multi character playground.
How The Mod Recreates GTA 5 Style Switching
Real Multiple Protagonists is not just a quick menu toggle between two clones of CJ. Kaizo put in serious work to make the experience feel smooth and cinematic, even with a game as old as San Andreas.
Using the old two player mode The mod hooks into San Andreas native co op system but removes the original limits. Player two is no longer a basic sidekick but a proper independent character with behaviors carefully recreated step by step.
Camera transitions Kaizo wanted something inspired by GTA 5's iconic top down camera sweep when you switch characters across the map. The challenge is that San Andreas has a very short draw distance. Raise the camera too high and all you see is a blue blob of sky. The solution is to combine the mod with draw distance mods so you can actually see the world from above as you move between characters.
UI and selection wheel The mod includes a character selection wheel menu influenced by GTA 5. Getting a clean circular UI in such an old game was a huge task. Kaizo had to use image masking tricks to keep icons inside the circle, which took weeks of trial and error due to the limitations of the original engine.
Interestingly, Real Multiple Protagonists grew out of another project called 2 Player Deluxe, which was meant to improve co op. While working on that mod, Kaizo accidentally triggered the hidden character priority function that Silent had documented. At first it seemed broken and unplayable, but instead of abandoning it, Kaizo leaned into it. The co op mod update was dropped, and Real Multiple Protagonists became the new focus.
Despite the complexity, Kaizo describes the whole process as enjoyable. The hardest part was the camera transition system, since San Andreas has no native way to tilt the camera downward while dynamically flying across the map. Even Rockstar struggled with camera tools for things like the credit sequences. For Kaizo, solving problems like these was satisfying rather than frustrating.
Why This Mod Matters For Old School GTA Fans
One of the coolest side effects of Real Multiple Protagonists is that many players are discovering San Andreas two player mode for the first time because of it. The mod has been met with a wave of positive feedback from both returning fans and new players who are diving into the 2004 classic for the first time.
Kaizo believes this shows how powerful modding can be in keeping older games alive. Rockstar often leans on nostalgia by re releasing classics, but modders go further by adding features nobody thought were possible. San Andreas still has huge potential today because of this community energy.
For Kaizo, San Andreas sits in that timeless space alongside games like Super Mario 64. It balances content, freedom, and accessibility in a way that still feels right even as modern games get bigger and more complex. With mods like Real Multiple Protagonists, the game is not just preserved, it evolves.
If you love the character switching in GTA 5 or Spider Man 2 and want to see an early version of that idea reborn inside a PS2 era world, this mod is worth checking out. It is a glimpse into the alternate timeline where San Andreas shipped with multiple protagonists and shows just how far passionate modders can push an old classic.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/grand-theft-auto/gta-5s-character-swapping-system-was-a-stroke-of-genius-that-was-supposed-to-feature-in-san-andreas-9-years-earlier-this-masterclass-mod-makes-that-dream-a-reality/
