GTA Online players discover a Red Dead Redemption Easter egg

A GTA Online player has discovered a Red Dead Redemption character in the game, in the form of merch worn by NPCs.

A Reddit user posted a picture of a deceased NPC wearing a red John Marston T-shirt layered over a long-sleeved black tee. Marston is a main character in both Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2. Marston is the playable protagonist in the original game, and a major side character in Red Dead Redemption 2, its prequel. It's clear that the Rockstar game universe (RGU?) is intertwined and somewhat rooted in reality, as Red Dead Redemption exists in the fictional Los Santos of GTA Online.

This isn't the first time a GTA Online player has noticed John Marston merch on an NPC. Six years ago Redditor EliasVT posted a picture of a similarly deceased NPC donning the shirt, which is also layered over a long-sleeved tee. Hilariously enough, both NPCs are dead, but that's probably because it's difficult to snap a good shot of Marston's visage on a moving (or running) character. According to EliasVT, they kept trying to take a picture of the NPC but he started trying to fight their GTA Online character, and so, in Wild West laws, he had to die. There's a whole host of videos and posts about the John Marston t-shirt Easter egg, so while it's technically not a new discovery, it's certainly a new one for us.

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This isn't his first appearance in GTA Online, as John Marston can be selected as a parent character model. During the GTA Online character creation process, players are tasked with choosing their heritage by selecting a father and a mother and using a slider to pull the resemblance closer to one or the other. You can't select Abigail Marston as your mother, however, which means you can't make yourself Jack Marston, who you briefly control in Red Dead Redemption. The existence of John as a father in GTA Online raises some serious questions and canon issues, as well, since the man passed away in the early 1900s, and GTA 5 came out in 2013. That would make your character a very old criminal, wouldn't it?

GTA Online is shutting down for Xbox 360 and PS3.