“Weird spiderwebs appearing at odd hours of the night in Rockstar’s open world game Red Dead Redemption 2?” you chortle. “That sounds like the testimony of crazy old Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, the guy who writes about new Molyneux projects like a pauper child returning from market with a handful of magic beans”. Mates, I promise I haven’t fallen victim to a scam of some kind. There are weird spiderwebs in RDR2. I read about it on the internet!
The spiderwebs appear to be part of a huge Easter egg puzzle the community (aka Youtubers, Xitter users and redditors) are now attempting to solve – an Easter egg that has allegedly lain uncracked since the game’s initial release in 2018. Spoilers to follow, of course.
The webs are referred to in the game’s files as “spiderdreams”, which invites association with the dreamcatchers from the Wisdom of the Elders side missions. They appear on telegraph poles throughout the landscape – the first to be discovered by users goldenplaysterraria, pariah87, and FL4VA-01 is found on a pole by the side of the railway between Citadel Rock and Heartland Oil Fields, at 3 to 4am in the morning.
There’s a feather dangling from the spiderweb you’ll seemingly need to shoot to advance the puzzle. There is also a rough carving of a spider on the pole, which is actually a secret map.
“Spidermaps on poles?” you sneer. “That sounds like the affidavit of crazy old Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, the guy who calls Sonic games ‘SNES-style’.” Friend, I assure you that I am on the level. Slide that carving over the game’s mapscreen to find the locations of several more spiderwebs, all of which spawn at certain times.
Head to the spidermap’s heart, and you’ll find a bigger spiderweb pointing you north to yet more poles, and yet more webs and other objects with occult spawning or activation criteria. Here’s a video from Strange Man to show you how. Commenters on the video claim the spiderwebs have been spawning since the game’s release, way back in 2018.
Watch on YouTube
There was an Easter egg mystery similar to this in GTA 5. Rockstar are in the habit of them. All told, you can see why some people work themselves up into an absolute froth over the possibility of GTA 6 release information squirrelled away in the phases of the Moon. Thanks to VGC for bundling up the latest speculations. Any thoughts/hopes about what might lie at the end of the trail? As per my headline, I’m hoping for something comparable to Link’s Awakening.
