Grand Theft Auto Online: A Safehouse in the Hills is now live.
This expansion features the introduction of mansions, a new story campaign featuring the return of Michael De Santa, and more.
Why Didn’t Rockstar Let Us Preload This Earlier?
As reported by RockstarIntel, Rockstar opted not to allow preloads for A Safehouse in the Hills. This may have inconvenienced the players, but it was clearly a deliberate choice.
Rockstar knows that Tex2, Gameroll, and other people in the Grand Theft Auto community were going to datamine the preload as soon as they had the opportunity.
For this update, Rockstar opted to keep their secrets to themselves. So the fans are only getting to find out what can be found in this update only now that it’s live.
A Safehouse in the Hills’ Download Sizes
Without further ado, here’s the download sizes for each platform:
- PlayStation 5 – 3.294 GB
- Xbox Series X|S – 5.66 GB
- Xbox One – 4.04 GB
- Rockstar Launcher Legacy – 4.39 GB
- Rockstar Launcher Enhanced – 4.95 GB
As of this writing, we don’t have these other download sizes, but the update is definitely also coming to Steam, Epic Game Store, and PlayStation 4.
We Aren’t All Playing This Together – At First
Rockstar’s choice may have meant that they kept their holiday surprises like they wanted, but it comes with consequences.
Now, fans will have to catch up to A Safehouse in the Hills at different times. This also means players who don’t have fast internet service are held back from playing it even longer.
This is actually problematic for a live service title. This means that Rockstar didn’t allow fans to swarm in en masse and optimize interest for the DLC at launch.
So, there is definitely a missed opportunity here, and Rockstar knows this. But at least, Grand Theft Auto Online isn’t dependent on creating these moments compared to competitive games like Marvel Rivals or Arc Raiders.
Will This Keep Fans Happy Until Grand Theft Auto 6?
The early buzz for A Safehouse in the Hills is promising, and maybe that’s because Rockstar kept their secrets. We’re still going through the contents of this update for now.
There will be layers of success that Rockstar and Take-Two are hoping for. It will be one thing if this makes as much money as previous updates, or more. But what would make this really successful is if the Grand Theft Auto faithful are willing to spend their time playing Grand Theft Auto Online again while waiting for Grand Theft Auto 6.
