CJ and Big Smoke Mods

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About

CJ and Big Smoke Mods refers to a modding trend that involves editing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas characters CJ and Big Smoke into various video games, with CJ usually replacing a protagonist and Big Smoke one of his opponents. Popularized by a 2019 mod for Resident Evil 2 Remake, the trend maintained prominence in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

Origin

Video game modders have been creating mods that replaced characters with Carl "CJ" Johnson from the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas since at least 2014. For example, on January 20th, 2014, Steam user RatioGaming uploaded^[1] a mod that replaced playable character Louis from Left 4 Dead with CJ, with the mod page visited by over 92,000 users and favorited over 2,700 times in eight years (image shown below, left).

Between 2014 and 2019, several notable mods replacing various characters with CJ were uploaded to Gamebanana and other websites. For example, on September 19th, 2017, Gamebanana^[2] user Xenoeidos uploaded a mod that replaced protagonist Link in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with CJ (shown below, center). The mod was downloaded over 3,900 times in five years. On January 15th, 2018, a Resident Evil Modding^[3] user shared a mod that replaced protagonist Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 4 with CJ (shown below, right).

On April 14th, 2019, YouTuber^[4] BeastGamingHD shared a video of a Resident Evil 2 Remake mod created by modder and 3D artist Macros RC which replaced Chris Redfield and boss enemy Mr. X with CJ and Big Smoke. The video (shown below) gained over 1.4 million views in three years.

Spread

The viral spread of the video, including posts on social media and reports by video game news websites, helped popularize the CJ modding trend. On May 5th, 2019, modder Drop0ff uploaded a since-removed CJ and Big Smoke mod for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice to Nexus Mods.^[5] On July 27th, YouTube^[6] user horheristo uploaded a boss fight scene with the mod activated which received over 1.9 million views prior to being removed (reupload and another showcase video shown below, left and right).

In the following years, various modders, most notably Macros RC, created mods for various video games which replaced characters with CJ and Big Smoke, with CJ usually replacing the protagonist and Big Smoke replacing one of the boss enemies. For example, on November 7th, 2019, Macros RC^[6] shared a mod for Devil May Cry 5 (showcase video shown below, left). On March 5th, 2020, modder BigSharkZ uploaded a mod for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker to Gamebanana^[7] (showcase video shown below, right).

Thomas the Tank Engine Mods

Thomas the Tank Engine Mods refers to video game mods that replace in-game models with Thomas the Tank Engine. A running gag in the modding community, Thomas the Tank Engine mods have been created for multiple role-playing and horror games, with Thomas' model often used to replace boss enemies, while the theme song from the original series replaces boss music for further effect.