GTA 5's Lamar reportedly supposed to replace Franklin at some point in the game's story mode

While many fans are unaware, Lamar Davis was supposed to replace Franklin Clinton as a playable character in GTA 5 Story Mode. Rockstar Games introduced three protagonists in the game and added Lamar as a comic character and a friend of Franklin.

However, it was later disclosed that Lamar was initially planned to replace Franklin Clinton towards the end of the storyline. Gerald "Slink" Johnson, Lamar’s voice actor, also confirmed the news.

Currently, Lamar Davis is only available as an NPC in the actual game and a controllable character in the Director Mode. However, fans were fascinated to learn about his detour as the fourth protagonist.

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How Lamar Davis missed the opportunity to replace Franklin Clinton in GTA 5 Story Mode

On October 10, 2014, Gerald "Slink" Johnson did a question-and-answer session on the popular subreddit Ask Me Anything (Reddit: r/IAmA). Along with other questions related to Grand Theft Auto 5, a user named SemaJames18 (Reddit: u/semaJames18) asked the popular GTA character about the rumor of Lamar being a playable character.

Comment by u/SemaJames18 from discussion I am Gerald "Slink" Johnson, voice of Lamar Davis of GTA V and star of Adult Swim's hit show, BLACK JESUS! AMA! in IAmA

In response, Gerald Johnson (Reddit: u/GeraldSlinkJohnson) said the following:

“...Originally there was gonna be a different story, with Lamar being deeper involved. However, I caught a case in real life that had me "tied up" for a few months and Rockstar had to move on, so the story became the one you see on GTA V…”

Comment by u/GeraldSlinkJohnson from discussion I am Gerald "Slink" Johnson, voice of Lamar Davis of GTA V and star of Adult Swim's hit show, BLACK JESUS! AMA! in IAmA

According to the voice actor, he got strangled in some personal issues during the game's development. As a result, Rockstar Games had to move forward with the current storyline to keep up with the schedule.

This is also evident in the game files, as many data miners previously disclosed Lamar Davis’ unused dialogs as a playable character.

Toward the end of Grand Theft Auto 5’s storyline, Franklin Clinton is given three ultimate choices by Devin Weston, the main antagonist of the game. One of them includes the character killing himself to save Trevor Philips and Michael De Santa. Rockstar Games originally wanted to kill Franklin in the last alternate ending and replace his character slot with Lamar Davis.

However, due to Gerald Johnson’s personal issues in real-life, GTA 5's story designers had to change the third ending completely. Surprisingly, the new ending is currently deemed the canon event in the game.