How Far Ahead Did Rockstar Plan Grand Theft Auto Online: A Safehouse In The Hills?

Videotechuk shared some interesting findings and theories about Grand Theft Auto Online: A Safehouse In The Hills.

The Evidence For A Long Production Time

The got started with this post earlier today:

‘A Safehouse in the Hills’ started development in September 2024. This update has been long in the works

He also shared a screenshot showing a timestamp of September 23, 2024. This was in an XML file, which is likely made from data found in Grand Theft Auto Online.

When asked about who makes these updates, videotechuk replied:

Rockstar Dundee (main development studio) and New York (for mocap and marketing) are mainly responsible for GTA Online.

Rockstar North and elsewhere are nowadays focused on GTAVI and other smaller projects (RDR1 Mobile)

There’s nothing particularly unusual about all this. Rockstar has had a smaller team work on Grand Theft Auto Online updates for a while. They have been posting two updates a year for a number of years already.

In fact, Grand Theft Auto Online: The Contract­ all the way back in 2021 was also under this two annual update schedule. They have enough people working on these updates to keep the quality up, but not so much to take away from development of Grand Theft Auto 6.

But there is something unusual in this detail that has videotechuk and other fans buzzing.

Community member 374 Karim brought up this possibility to videotechuk:

This adds credence to the idea that the update was meant to be a lot bigger, with a Part 2 in the spring, as a final DLC before GTA VI.

It seems like that content will be expanded for a summer DLC, taking down Mr. Faber.

Videotechuk shared this reply:

Yep! I’m just checking here and Money Fronts has the same exact date on when they started production on Safehouse.

Did Rockstar Expand This Last DLC For A Part 2?

As videotechuk revealed, Rockstar Dundee worked on Money Fronts and A Safehouse In The Hills at the same September 2024 timeframe. That was a lot of time to produce all the content that we have seen this year, but the players seem to feel that there was something missing.

This isn’t because of the volume of content, or the quality of the missions. It’s because there’s no sense of closure when it comes to Mr. Faber.

Is Mr. Faber to emerge as the last big bad of Grand Theft Auto Online? Or will he prove to be a bigger character than that? After all, he could be the connecting thread between Grand Theft Auto Online in Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto 6.

If Rockstar does have a ‘part 2’ to A Safehouse In The Hills, it may or may not be about taking down Mr. Faber. After all, he’s still a cipher at the end of this campaign. It may be that he’s discreetly a character who plays a big role in Grand Theft Auto 6 – and Grand Theft Auto Online was an opportunity to introduce him early to the fans.