Seeking to Uncover Grand Theft Auto V's Mysteries, Players Discover Virtual Memorial to a Second Life Pioneer

A few months ago I told you about Chris Edwards, the 3D artist who pioneered Second Life prim-based creativity, but tragically just died before turning 45. (But not before meeting the woman of his dreams, another 3D artist he met in SL.) There's now a touching coda to that, and it's the story of multiple virtual worlds and how they remember the people who mattered to them after they're gone. And it goes something like this:

In Grand Theft Auto V, there's a mountain called Chiliad which has a strange mystery that's confounded the player community, as Kotaku reported:

The Chiliad Mystery is the name given to the bizarre, unexplained discoverables seeded throughout GTA V. Ever since the first iteration of the game came out last year, a dedicated core of players on Reddit and fan sites has been scouring GTA V for clues and secrets that might tie the weirdness into some kind of logical sense. What's the weirdness exactly? Scattered all over Los Santos are drawings and writing focused on unidentified flying objects.

So the subreddit /ChiliadMystery was born, which is where players share their findings to uncover that mystery (something to do with UFOs, is the working theory). A series of clues led "viendetta" to stumble onto a clearing with a telescope and some park benches, near a graveyard. And there he noticed that on one bench, was a placard to the memory of Chris Edwards. And in this way, Chris became part of this mystery story these GTA V players were trying to solve.

I know this, because I noticed traffic coming to this blog from that subreddit, where "IAA33" cross-referenced the GTA V credits, did some Googling, and came to this conclusion:

Very talented 3D artist//graphic designer, he was nicknamed Eddie Escher by his colleagues at R*. Present on Second Life, where amongst things he met with the woman he then married. Some bit of information There's a pic of them. They look so sweet. For what i've read, he passed away at 44 during his sleep. I feel a bit sad now. Damn guts. RIP Chris Edwards

Because as it happens, after pioneering in Second Life (where he was known by his avatar name, Eddie Escher), Chris went on to create art for Rockstar Games, for Grand Theft Auto V. I know this, because I asked his widow (Alayne Wartell IRL, Fallingwater Cellardoor in SL) and she confirmed to me that he'd become an artist for Rockstar. And I told her about the memorial for her late husband in the game. Rockstar had told her about the tribute, she told me, but because she doesn't have a Playstation 4, hadn't seen it for herself. But she told me she was glad someone had finally found it. She was even more pleased that the memorial had led players to go searching for Chris, and wound up seeing the photo of her and her husband together, during their happy times. And without even knowing the man, now feel sad that he was gone.

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Comments

[Betsy]

Love goes on and on - that's the good stuff about it.

Sweet reminder we all have real people behind the screens.

[Reece]

To anyone having problems with the gfs setup tool. Add .exe to the end of the file by renaming it. The icon Will immediately change. Then just double click it to launch

[Reece]

Gta*

[Anonymous]

That moment when a UFO spawns above you and then Michael falls from it in GTA online

[Seymore Steamweaver]

A very touching piece. Thank you.