It’s a little early for Halloween, but it looks like Rockstar Games’ latest patch has created a truly horrifying scene for folks playing Red Dead Online; massive piles of dead, burned horses.
The latest update to Red Dead Online went live this week, introducing some new multiplayer story beats to follow, a bunch of extra in-game missions, new gear and the long-awaited arrival of multiplayer poker. What fans didn’t expect to get out of the patch, too, was a nightmare scene ripped straight from a horror game.
According to reports popping up all over social media, players are discovering large piles of dead horses. To make matters worse, this isn’t even your garden variety deceased equine. No, these bad boys have been badly burned, leaving their bodies scarred and bloody.
These piles are apparently being found immediately outside of towns within the game world and, obviously, folks who stumbled upon them were a bit concerned.
Soooooo… playing RDR2 online and I venture into Valentine and I'm greeted by this…
Just a bunch of dead horses that have been skinned, nothing out of the ordinary… 😱 pic.twitter.com/Ut3DG3xfE9
— Einar 🎮 (@IceHolmvik) May 19, 2019
Based on all the rumblings on Reddit and Twitter, the current working theory is that these Lovecraftian scenes are the result of a bug tied to code meant to keep players from utilizing a duplication exploit. Players have figured out how to use their horse’s storage to duplicate some items within the game world. The working theory is that, in an attempt to fix that bug, something else within the code broke and dumped piles of dead horses outside of towns. It’s kind of hilarious and terrifying all at the same time.
If you want to rush into the game to see this scene for yourself, you might be out of luck. Reports of dead horse piles have all but dried up and players have noted that towns have less human and animal traffic this weekend, which means Rockstar probably cut off spawns within the area to stop the puddles of dead horses from appearing. And yes, I said “puddles of dead horses.” You may offer your own colloquialism in the comments below.
