GTA 5 Mansions DLC is Hiding a Red Dead Redemption 2 Reference

GTA Online’s new mansions update appears to be hiding a Red Dead Redemption 2 update, and who knows what this could mean.

Rockstar Games is set to release GTA 6 next November, and it’s managed to crack out one last major update for GTA Online in the meantime.

GTA V will be the game that we spent a majority of our lives playing, and the new A Safehouse In The Hills update seems like a fantastic way of sunsetting that chapter, giving players the opportunity to use their huge cash stockpiles to buy giant mansions.

Not only this, but the update has a tonne of references to past GTA V characters and events, such as Michael and Amanda showing up as characters in the DLC’s new mission.

In addition to that, it looks like the update may have also included a reference to Red Dead Redemption 2, seemingly bridging the continuity between both franchises.

As spotted by Rockstar Intel, some text included with the new update seems to refer to Charles Châtenay, who apparently painted one of the artworks that can be bought for your GTA Online mansion.

Aaron Trueman/Rockstar Intel

Red Dead fans may remember Charles Châtenay as the starving artist who appears in The Artist’s Way stranger mission in Red Dead Redemption 2.

The mission sees Arthur having several encounters with Châtenay, who seems to keep getting himself into trouble with various residents of Saint Denis.

The mission ends with Châtenay escaping by boat to the South Pacific.

Rockstar Probably Isn't Hinting At Something Greater

Whether this painting is actually supposed to be one created by the same Charles Châtenay from Red Dead Redemption 2, or just a fun easter egg, hasn’t been confirmed by Rockstar.

Considering that the developer is keen to keep Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption as separate franchises, I’d imagine there isn’t really much reason to look further into this.

For example, “Red Dead Redemption” can be found as a book on the in-game bookshelves in GTA V, written by a “J. Marston”. You can also find John’s hat lying inside a garbage bin in L.A. Noire, a Rockstar-published game that takes place in the 1940s. Rockstar just loves an intertextual reference.

So, I wouldn’t count on this confirming that Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto take place in the same universe.

There’d be a lot of continuity errors if that were the case.