Stockholm Pride and the Swedish advertising agency Garbergs collaborated to develop a new modification for the wildly successful videogame Grand Theft Auto 5 that will allow players to interact with a Pride parade in the game’s fictitious city of Los Santos.
The parade simulation, dubbed Los Santos Pride, is meant to be a tribute to the 49 victims of the Pulse shooting. This may seem odd since the premise behind GTA 5 is to create as much violence as you can, including attacking people with guns.
“This project has never been about moralizing over violence in games,” Garbergs interactive art director William Lothman told IBTimes UK. “For us, Los Santos Pride is all about love and equality. That’s the essence of the project and that’s just a non-debatable fact.”
In this GTA modification, only available on the PC version of the game, members of the parade cannot be attacked or killed, something done as a message to those who try to destroy our way of life, according to Lothman.
“The importance of taking a stand for more love and equality in the world. Especially now, in times like these. That’s why we decided to make the parade indestructible – just to show that love always triumphs,” he said.
The Pride parade features rainbow flags, a pink monster truck and parade marchers holding signs that read “Happy Pride” and “Love Comes In All Colors.” One sign has ORLANDO written across a rainbow colored heart.
Los Santos Pride is an unofficial mod and does not involve Rockstar Games, the company that developed the GTA videogame series. When GTA 5 was released on PC last year a new feature added was that of gamers being able to develop mods for the game enabling them, not the developer, to expand and grow the city of Los Santos.
The GTA 5 mod is free and available for download at LosSantosPride.com.
