Carl "CJ" Johnson: San Andreas's Lead, Built by the Player

Carl "CJ" Johnson is the lead of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). He is usually remembered for his neighborhood, Grove Street, and his family. This page makes a different case: CJ is the first GTA lead whose body and abilities the player shapes, and the first voiced lead in the 3D series cast as an unknown. Both choices pulled the lead away from a fixed movie character and toward someone the player helps author.

At a glance

What is counted, and how

Character and gameplay facts come from Rockstar's store copy and GameSpot's launch review. Release dates and sales come from Rockstar press releases and Take-Two filings. Rockstar's ship announcement is dated Oct 25 2004 and says the game had shipped to retail stores. Take-Two's Sep 10 2004 filing and GameSpot both give Oct 26 2004 as the North American date, which this page uses.

Arithmetic: Rockstar announced the game on Mar 1 2004 for Oct 19 2004 in North America. On Sep 10 2004 Take-Two moved that to Oct 26, a week later, to allow more time for final testing. The 12 million figure covers sales through Jan 31 2005, which is 97 days after the Oct 26 release.

Left out: the voice actor's later public comments about Rockstar, which we found only in social media posts as summarized by other outlets, and any claim about his family ties to other GTA actors, which we found only on fan sites and IMDb. We also leave out the 2005 episode in which hidden content led to a ratings change and a recall; it is a ratings story and is covered on /library/gta-san-andreas.

The setup

Rockstar's copy sets it out. Five years earlier, Carl left Los Santos and its gang trouble behind. Now it is the early 1990s and he has to go home: his mother has been murdered, his family has fallen apart and his old friends are heading for disaster. Almost as soon as he lands, a pair of corrupt cops frame him for a homicide.

GameSpot fills in the first act. CJ has spent the five years in Liberty City, the city of GTA III. His gang, the Grove Street Families, has fallen apart while he was away. With the other leaders, Big Smoke, Ryder and his brother Sweet, he sets out to win back territory from the rival Ballas, starting with spraying over rival tags and moving up to drive-bys. In 2021 Rockstar summed up the story as CJ fighting "the streets and corrupt cops to save his family."

The lead the player builds

Houser told GameSpot in 2011 that "by San Andreas we put some very limited role-playing bits in there." GameSpot's 2004 review shows how much of that landed on CJ himself. Tommy Vercetti and Claude were fixed characters. CJ changes with how you play.

This table lists the CJ-specific systems GameSpot reported, with how the review framed each one against earlier games.

GameSpot's verdict was that the system worked because it stayed subtle. The effect was that one player's CJ could look and fight differently from another's, which the review presents as new to the series.

The casting break

Vice City's lead was Ray Liotta, a film star. San Andreas went the other way. GameSpot noted that Rockstar "doesn't go overboard" with famous names and cast "a relatively unknown rapper by the name of Young Maylay in the role of CJ," adding that he "delivers an excellent performance." The famous names went to supporting roles instead: Samuel L. Jackson as the corrupt Officer Tenpenny, MC Eiht as Ryder, James Woods, Peter Fonda, David Cross and others.

Houser explained the thinking in 2011. "By the end of San Andreas," he said, Rockstar was "getting better results with non-famous actors," and the studio later moved to top-level actors who are "just not famous ones." CJ is where that policy shows up first in a lead role. For the lead before him see /library/tommy-vercetti, and for the lead after him see /library/niko-bellic.

CJ's game on every platform

This table lists every release of San Andreas documented by the sources above, with the gap from the PS2 launch.

Spoilers

GameSpot's review declines to spell out the mid-game turn, but says that after "everything goes sour" in Los Santos, CJ has to leave the city and ends up in the countryside, where the story widens into the rest of the state. The review also says the game brings back characters from earlier GTA games. One is Claude, the silent lead of GTA III: GamesRadar described his cameo in 2007 and its joke at his expense, with Carl calling him "a snake without a tongue." See /library/claude.

Legacy

CJ's two firsts were a body the player shapes and a lead cast for fit rather than fame. The second became studio policy by Houser's 2011 account, when he said Rockstar used top-level actors who are not famous. San Andreas also tied CJ to the earlier games: he spent his missing years in GTA III's Liberty City, and the story brings back older characters. For the state he crosses, see /library/san-andreas-state and /library/los-santos.

Trivia

• GameSpot's review joked that "Carl Johnson is going (going) back (back) to Cali (Cali)," and scored the game 9.6.
• Take-Two said San Andreas was the top-selling PlayStation 2 title in the United States in each of the four months after its release, per NPD (Take-Two, Mar 3 2005).
• The game's story starts with CJ locked into Los Santos; GameSpot notes the story explains this with an earthquake that has cut the bridges and roads to the rest of the state.
• Rockstar's Mar 1 2004 announcement listed San Andreas as a PlayStation 2 exclusive. The Xbox version was announced on Dec 16 2004, after launch, in the same release that set the Xbox and PC street dates.

Sources

• GameSpot, Jeff Gerstmann, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Review, Oct 25 2004 (read via Wayback Machine)
• Steam store page, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
• Rockstar Games via Take-Two IR, Rockstar Games Announces Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Mar 1 2004
• Take-Two Interactive, Form 8-K exhibit 99, Sep 10 2004
• Rockstar Games via Take-Two IR, Rockstar Games Ships Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for PlayStation2, Oct 25 2004
• Rockstar Games via Take-Two IR, San Andreas for Xbox; Street Dates Confirmed for Xbox and PC, Dec 16 2004
• Take-Two Interactive, Form 8-K exhibit 99.1, Mar 3 2005
• Take-Two Interactive, Form 8-K exhibit 99.1, Feb 3 2014
• Rockstar Games via Business Wire, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition Now Available, Nov 11 2021 (read via Wayback Machine)
• GameSpot, Shaun McInnis, Dan Houser Opens Up About Grand Theft Auto III, Oct 21 2011 (read via Wayback Machine)
• GameSpot, Jeff Gerstmann, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Review, Oct 28 2002 (read via Wayback Machine)
• GamesRadar, Grand Theft Auto: Loose ends, page 5, May 2 2007 (read via Wayback Machine)