Green Versus Purple: The Alien Gang War That Hijacked GTA Online - IGN (2024)

That’s the end point of the alien gang wars story. But what of the start? Well, that’s all down to Adam Long. On April 15, Long published a video to Reddit. The clip shows him and a few friends - all dressed in neon green alien bodysuits - pull a handbrake turn on Los Santos’ pier and bail out of their van, startling another player. They then beat him to death with baseball bats and drive away. As of writing, the video has over 28,000 upvotes, and has inspired an all-encompassing movement.

“Our country is on lock-down, so we were constantly looking for new stuff to do on lots of different games,” Long says while explaining why he and his friends pulled the in-game prank.

Lockdown is one reason behind the wildfire-like spread of the alien gang wars - almost everyone I’ve spoken to about the phenomenon is of school age and now forced to stay at home - but social media has provided more fuel for the fire. “It's even more fun just watching all the posts on Reddit, TikTok, and YouTube of the community just coming together and having so much fun during these crazy times,” says Long.

“All of a sudden all my notifications are kids DMing me asking me ‘Hey, can you please play with me?’” he says, despite not being a previously established GTA personality.

With the community behind the war growing at an exponential rate, it needed a home. Intergalactics, created by Florent Gradit-Perier, is one of two major subreddits dedicated to the alien gang wars. When Florent, known on Reddit as FloFlan, created the subreddit and its associated Discord server and in-game Crews, the green versus purple element of the war had yet to break out. The craze was simply anarchy on the streets of Los Santos.

“I set up Intergalactics Inc because I wanted to unite all the aliens to be more coordinated and make the war funnier,” Florent says. “It wasn't a purple vs green [war] but just aliens jumping on poor random players.”

Alongside r/intergalactics is r/GreenVSPurple, set up by Reddit user tapwaterbread. While the subreddit also has aims of bringing alien players together, it has an interesting side goal: “it also allowed for the main subreddit to become less flooded with alien content,” says tapwaterbread.

Unsurprisingly, the alien war isn’t enjoyed by all GTA Online players. Their usual home has been transformed into a ganking arena, and it can feel impossible to escape. And that’s why, explains Ko, the final battle has been declared.

“This final battle came from Reddit,” he says. “They were talking about how the core game of GTA was being ruined, and this war had to be over. It was getting to a point where you can’t even get on GTA without seeing a hundred aliens going around killing you every five seconds.”

“I think the alien war has made GTA Online a lot more fun and has brought back a lot of veteran players to the game,” agrees tapwaterbread. “With everything going on in our world and us being stuck at home for most of the day, the alien war has definitely made my quarantine more enjoyable.”

Ko highlights how important the war and viral TikTok videos can be for lonely people stuck in lockdown. “Imagine being a kid who can’t even go see his friends because of this quarantine, and all of a sudden you have a thousand people who want to play games with you because of your clips.”

With the final battle fast approaching, this new community is already planning how it will adapt to life on the other side of the Los Santos International Airport showdown. “We host car meets every two days and gang meet-ups too sometimes to keep us all together,” says Lui. And the Official Purple Gang Discord isn’t the only group adopting non-alien activities to do with newfound allies; servers I’ve visited are already planning name changes to reflect their new identities in peacetime.

Ko also thinks Rockstar would be sensible to pay attention to the phenomenon. “I’m curious about how the game will evolve from here,” he says. “What future conflict will come from this? How will Rockstar adapt to this?” He notes that he’d like to see an official “Gangs” DLC expansion for GTA Online.

Rockstar is, of course, watching. On May 7 the developer made the alien bodysuits - which usually cost a huge $358,000 of in-game cash to buy - temporarily free of charge for all players. And since guns are prohibited by the war’s code, it means there’s now no in-game charge for anything required to take part. You just need to suit up, hijack a car, and you’re part of something huge.

At a time when the world is feeling more isolated than it ever has, being a part of something unifying is perhaps more important than ever. The fact that the players of GTA Online created this alien gang war themselves, with no input from Rockstar at all, only makes it all the more impressive and uplifting. In-game concerts may distract for an evening, but pledging allegiance to a gang? Well, that’s for life. Or at least until May 15.