Grand Theft Auto VI is currently in development and Rockstar Games are keeping things quiet for now. Fans have show their love of the Grand Theft Auto series as the games have broken sales records every time a new entry comes out.
It’s unclear whether the next game will return to Liberty City or Vice City, but fans can expect the immersive open-world to be filled with plenty of easter eggs and references. Let’s take a look at the numerous easter eggs and references Rockstar Games sneaked into the last release in the franchise, Grand Theft Auto V.
10 Star Wars Drone
Star Wars has managed to capture the interest and investment of more than three generations of people. This means that it’s almost impossible to engage with entertainment and not be subjected to some form of easter egg or reference to the science fiction phenomenon that is Star Wars. Not surprisingly GTA V is guilty of this and in an ad for a Drone Chatterbot smartphone the phrase “this is the drone you’ve been looking for” can be heard. A reference to the famous line in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope spoken by Obi-Wan Kenobi.
9 Bully Jersey
It seems that every 6 months a new rumor focused on an apparent sequel to Rockstar Games’ beloved Bully game comes up. The studio loves their own library of projects and loves to pay homage to them regardless of their financial success. Bully has two separate easter eggs in GTA V with the first being a blue jersey with the name Hopkins on it worn by an NPC in the Vanilla Unicorn strip club. The other is an ad for a film called Sequel II, which is a reference to a movie in the Bully game called Sequel: The Movie.
8 Dead Island Commercial
With GTA V releasing in 2013, it had a fair amount of material to work with when it came to poking fun at video game marketing. One of the more famous video game commercials was for a zombie survival game called Dead Island which had a child die and become a zombie in it.
In GTA V players can find billboards for a show called Rehab Island whose logo is a direct reference to the previously mentioned game with slight changes to both the font and the palm tree, which is a marijuana leaf on the billboards.
7 Manhunt’s Piggsy
Pig masks seem to be an ongoing theme in Rockstar Games and have made several appearances in their work. The most notable is a killer from the Manhunt series named Piggsy who wears a pig mask and wields a chainsaw. Red Dead Revolver also happened to have an insane man in a pig mask who loved dynamite. In GTA V players can acquire the same mask Piggsy wears in the Manhunt games by visiting the Vespucci Movie Masks shop in Vespucci Beach. If you want to look like a killer the opportunity is there and waiting.
6 Back To The Future
Back To The Future is considered by many to be one of the most important pieces of American pop culture from the 80s. To this day it’s hard not to stumble into someone who isn’t a diehard fan in some capacity. GTA V features several easter eggs that pay homage to the trilogy of films in one way or another. Some power stations around the city have stickers that say 1.21 GW (which likely means 1.21 gigawatts), churches are named after the town in which the films take place (Hill Valley), and the airline MyFly could be a reference to the main character’s name (Marty McFly).
5 Claptrap
Being a polarizing figure is interesting because most people subscribe to the belief that it’s better to have some people hate you, then for them to be indifferent to your existence. Claptrap is a droid-like robot from the Borderlands game franchise and happens to be one of the medium’s most polarizing characters. Some people want Claptrap as their sidekick, and others want to throw it in the trash. The latter must have happened in Los Santos as a robot that resembles Claptrap can be found in the Paleto Bay junkyard.
4 The X-Files
Later in the entries, Lester’s collection of nerdy memorabilia will be discussed once again, but for this entry, the focus is on his posters. In his house players will come across a poster featuring a UFO of some sort with the words “Accept the Truth” printing along the bottom. In the beloved cult show X-Files, one of the main characters named Fox Mulder has a poster that says “I Want To Believe.” It makes sense that a paranoid person like Lester would be into cryptids, myths, and conspiracy theories of all sorts.
3 John Marston
In GTA V’s online mode aptly titled GTA Online, players get the opportunity to create their own character via the selection of parents. One of the father’s the player can end up with for their character is none other than Red Dead Redemption’s John Marston.
This is a neat shoutout to Rockstar Games’ other blockbuster franchise and showcases a character who was at the center of both major narrative releases in the series. Fans are hoping Arthur Morgan shows up as a possible father in GTA VI’s online mode.
2 Jackie Brown Apartment
When people search for easter eggs in media they often seek out references to things they’re familiar with. Rockstar Games manages to do a good job of catering to various generations of gamers, considering how vast the demographic of its games are. Jackie Brown is likely a film most kids under 20 don’t know about, but it was a 1997 film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Trevor’s first safehouse in Los Santos happens to be modeled directly off of the character Melanie’s apartment in the film.
1 Action Figure Collection
Lester is a rather odd and creepy character in GTA V and symbolizes the generalized image of an introverted hacker nerd. In his safehouse players can come across an action figure collection with numerous models that resemble famous superheroes and characters in pop culture. Among the figures are close resemblances to Han Solo from Star Wars, Black Adam and Superman from DC Comics, and Master Chief from the Halo games. These all sit above a giant replica of the famous fantasy sword of myth, Excalibur.
NEXT: Ranking Every Rockstar Video Game From Worst To Best