Players anxiously awaiting Rockstar to reveal any information about the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto 6 may have discovered some hints at its development hidden within Red Dead Redemption 2’s back-end files files.
Over on the GTA Forums, a user was digging through code in Red Dead Redemption 2 and made a surprising discovery after viewing a file called propsets.meta.
In this file, the names of several weapons were listed. Interestingly, these weapons aren’t found in Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto V. One references a pistol referred to as Browning and the other a L1A1 rifle. The user who discovered these files, DerekLeet, believes the former is the Browning Hi-Power.
This is important to note because RDR2’s story takes place in 1899 and these guns would be completely out of place historically.
There are also two variants of the Browning pistol with the other likely being a silenced/suppressed version.
Additionally, the AK-47 is also found in the game’s code. While some may think this would have been leftover or extra code from GTA 5, it doesn’t line up with how that game refers to the weapon.
As DerekLeet explained, “These aren’t from GTA V because GTA V’s version of these sections have entirely different weapons, and the AK47 in that game is referred to as ‘W_AR_ASSAULTRIFLE’ rather than ‘W_AR_AK47.’”
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What makes this discovery all the stranger is the fact that these files aren’t new or added in with a patch. According to the original poster, these files have been in the game dating back to Red Dead Redemption 2’s launch on PS4 and Xbox One.
One possibility is that these weapons were actually intended for RDR2 as a cut cheat code or easter egg, as bringing an AK-47 into the old west would be absolutely insane.
That said, it’s also possible that these files are connected to GTA 6. Considering the fact that Red Dead 2 was such a technical wonder there’s a chance that Rockstar was using it to test out some parts of GTA 6.
In any case, this marks yet another chapter in the ever-growing hype towards the next GTA title even though Rockstar has yet to formally announce the game.
Hopefully, once GTA V gets rereleased on next-gen consoles, we can hear something about the next installment later on in 2021.