If you’ve ever longed to see Rockstar’s controversial early 2000s snuff game Manhunt get a fully-blown crossover with its slightly more jovially murdery sibling Grand Theft Auto, a San Andreas total conversion mod that’s recently released its first playable demo might be up your alley. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to put some distance between me and that probably very bloodstained alley.
The mod’s dubbed GTA: Carcer City, and as one the modders behind it has revealed in a chat with Kotaku, it recreates all of the original Manhunt’s levels as part of an open-world crime sim which substantially expands upon the story and worldspace you can explore. “I’d say less than 10 percent of the map is from Manhunt, 85 percent by us (Me, Deadpool, Miauz, 1GB, etc…), and the remaining percentage by older mods that we have permission to use,” modder Mattineu explained.
The mod’s version of original Manhunt metropolis Carcer City is inspired by Cleveland and Detroit, dripping with the sort of gritty industrial ruin GTA’s versions of Liberty City often exude when you stray far from the skyscrapers and neatly gridded streets of Algonquin, their version of Manhattan. Story-wise, the modders have gone their own way, while incorporating some characters from the original Manhunt.
“Almost a decade after being unfairly expelled from the Carcer City Police Department, Liam O’Mulligan is still picking up the pieces,” reads a synopsis in the description of the modders’ YouTube video showing off the intro. “Once a detective, now relying on immoral jobs offered by former partners and other figures from back in the day. When one of these jobs goes fatally wrong, Liam is plunged into the underworld of this decaying city, uncovering webs of conspiracies and criminal activities that involve everyone from low-life criminals to influential government officials.”
Manhunt’s before my time, so I certainly can’t say I’m one of folks who’ve been clamouring for it to make a return, though I can appreciate the amount of work that’s gone into this mod. The original game’s ended up a cult hit, having sparked plenty of controversy both inside and outside of Rockstar around the time it came out, being banned in several countries for due to its depiction of brutal killings carried out by a death row inmate at the orders of a snuff film director. Its sequel, Manhunt 2, was subsequently banned in the UK. Here are some more in-depth retrospective thoughts on the first game from Kieron Gillen and Jon Denton.
To give GTA: Carcer City’s demo a go, you’ll need a clean install of GTA San Andreas’s 1.0 version.
