2024 Santos

2024 Santos is a joke mod created by a Reddit user by the name of u/2019h740 that stars Congressman George Santos. The mod features George Santos, Mitt Romney, Bernie Sanders, and Rand Paul all running against each other, in a strange world where many of Santos' famed lies have caught on.

Gameplay
The only playable character in this mod is George Santos himself, and the only playable VP is House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The mod is very obviously a joke, being set in a universe where most of the nation now believes that George Santos was, among other things, the First Man On The Moon and a Founding Father. The mod is very short, only being 5 questions long.

Creation
2024 Santos was announced on May 29th, 2023, and many people in the comments were sarcastically supporting Santos. In the Reddit post, a Nikki Haley VP option was said to be worked on, but it never happened in the final product. Just 5 hours after the original mod announcement, u/2019h740 posted another update showcasing the mods starting margins and questions. Once again, the comments would be jokingly praising George Santos.

Mod launch
At 7:30 PM EST, on May 31st, 2023, the George Santos would be formally released for people to play. It garnered over 70 upvotes, with people being supportive of the mod. However, it wouldn't be added to the loader for unknown reasons. A common assumption is that it was too short and too much of a joke, but that is pure speculation.

Reception and legacy
The mod overall would be jokingly received well, but Tom (creator of 1948Red) would go on to call the mod "meh", specifically saying, "wish they had leaned into it more and made more jokes beside the one they repeated over and over again. The mod was as minimal as possible but still managed to be lame and tiring."

It, along with Spongebob 2008, Chris Chan 2012, DPRK 2019, and The Divorce Trail would join the leagues of a sub-genre known as "joke mods". Coincidentally, Spongebob 2008 was the first mod to release within May 2023 and Santos 2024 was the last mod to release in May 2023.