GTA Easter Eggs You Missed In Other Games

There's no studio quite like Rockstar Games.

The company truly lives up to its name in the world of video games, attaining a status in the industry that, arguably, stands tall with some of its heaviest hitters. Rockstar's games have done billions of dollars in sales. Players wait ever so anxiously for each new release. And, like an actual rock star, the company is sometimes front-page news for some controversial reasons.

It's no wonder other developers like to pay homage to Rockstar in their games. And that Rockstar would pay homage to itself.

The Grand Theft Auto series is by far Rockstar's biggest franchise. And you can find a host of GTA Easter eggs in games made by other companies, as well as other games made by Rockstar. Some are pretty out in the open, while others require some knowledge of past GTA titles. The one thing they all have in common, though? It's always fun to find them.

Here are the GTA Easter eggs you missed in other games.

Grand Theft Auto 4's Liberty City is basically a knock-off version of New York City. And, as it just so happens, New York City is the place that Marvel's Spider-Man takes place. Spidey swings through well-known NYC tourist spots all the time while foiling criminal plans. And in one side mission, he finds himself overhearing another plot about to unfold.

Who does Spider-Man overhear? Why, it's someone who goes by the name of Niko.

One could argue that Insomniac Games didn't mean for this to be Niko Bellic from Grand Theft Auto 4, but it's hard to dispute the evidence. For starters, the character has the trademark jumpsuit Niko so often wore. And to top it off, he makes mention of the getaway driver — his cousin — that will be helping them with the heist they're planning.

That driver is, of course, named Roman.

As Spider-Man, you can intervene and make sure the heist never gets off the ground. And you'll have prevented innocent people from being robbed — and likely, prevented Roman from going bowling afterward.

If you've played through Red Dead Redemption 2, you're well aware that things pretty much never go right for the Van der Linde gang. Their planned robberies almost always fall apart. Their schemes tend to blow up in their faces. And the Pinkerton Detective Agency always seems to be right on their tails. It shouldn't have come as a surprise that the gang's holdup in Saint Denis went badly.

And it really shouldn't have come as a surprise that the gang's escape on a transport ship ended with them shipwrecked and stranded in Guarma.

What's left of the gang comes face to face almost instantly with the hired henchmen of a criminal kingpin on the island. And Dutch — who always seems to have a plan — does some quick thinking when he's asked for his name. He answers with "Aiden O'Malley," which might not have rung a bell if you never set foot in the world of Grand Theft Auto 4.

But for those who played Rockstar's other classic, the name might have made a light bulb go off. As it turns out, Aiden O'Malley is also a character in GTA 4's "Tunnel of Death" mission — and just one of many hat tips Rockstar gives to the GTA series in Red Dead Redemption 2.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, one of the many side quests Arthur Morgan can take on starts with a rather gruesome discovery. It's an area with a few scattered several body parts along with a note. That note leads Arthur to several more clues — all featuring hideous acts of violence — that eventually lead to a serial killer.

That serial killer is named Edmund Lowry. And, again, if you know your stuff from Grand Theft Auto 4, that name might look awfully familiar.

GTA 4 has a serial killer of its own. Not unlike Edmund Lowry in RDR2, this serial killer has a penchant for severing heads and other body parts. His killings are rather senseless. His knife is his go-to. Main character Niko Bellic meets this serial killer and gets a good look at his work when he visits the serial killer's hideout. And, like Arthur Morgan in Red Dead 2, he also comes close to meeting his end.

The serial killer in GTA 4 goes by Eddie Low. It seems Rockstar just couldn't help themselves by adding another GTA reference to RDR2, and also made the Red Dead character a serial killer, to boot. Hats off, Rockstar.

You can find a wink at Grand Theft Auto in a little game you might have heard of called Mass Effect 2. ME2 released in early 2010, a time when the press was very much making a big deal about some of the more adult themes found in Grand Theft Auto games. It seems the team at BioWare couldn't help but stir the pot when it came to all the controversy surrounding the GTA series. And, in true BioWare form, they did it in the most snarky way possible.

If you boot up Mass Effect 2 and pay a visit to the Game Shop in the Citadel, you'll meet a sales-Salarian who has an awful lot to say about video games. But one quote in particular sticks out.

"I don't get the complaints about the Grim Terminus Alliance games," he says. "So what if you can capture and beat slaves? It's just a game."

Grim Terminus Alliance. Grand Theft Auto. GTA. We see what you did there, BioWare.

Some references to the Grand Theft Auto series in other games are super obvious. Some are a little more under the radar. It's safe to say that the GTA Easter egg found in Burnout Paradise Remastered definitely fits into the former category — and, rather appropriately, performs a little theft of its own.

Look at the image above. It's tough to deny that Burnout Paradise Remastered didn't straight-up jack the font Grand Theft Auto uses for this used car shop.

It's almost immediately obvious the first time you see the sign and look at the word "autos" within it. But what makes this Easter egg especially cool is that it has multiple layers of reference, and not just to Grand Theft Auto. Sure, you can see that the sign looks almost exactly like the Grand Theft Auto logo used in the games. And you can even tie the "Brucie's" in the name to Grand Theft Auto 4's Brucie Kibbutz, who runs an auto shop.

But if you look at the dollar sign, you can also make another connection: to the game show The Price is Right, which also uses the same font as GTA. So many references!

Unsurprisingly, Rockstar seems to lead the way when it comes to burying Grand Theft Auto Easter eggs in other games. And you'll find no shortage of references to GTA in 2018's Red Dead Redemption 2 — you can see that by simply reading through this list. But this last Easter egg is perhaps the coolest one of all, because there wasn't a single player who managed to come across it during gameplay.

In fact, no one has come across it yet. We're all still searching.

It has to do with Grand Theft Auto 5 character Michael De Santa, who was voiced by Ned Luke. A sharp-eyed Red Dead 2 player happened to catch Ned's name while looking at the game's credits, and decided to tweet at the actor to ask if he did, indeed, play a role.

"Spotted in credits," Ned tweeted out. "Now can you find me in the game?"

Some players have found someone who looks incredibly similar to Michael hanging out as part of the Chelonia cult. But we've yet to find any confirmation that this is the correct. So the search for GTA 5's Michael in Red Dead Redemption 2 will go on.

Grand Theft Auto 4 first hit store shelves in 2008, but the game's influence lived on far beyond that. A whole host of memes were born out of GTA 4's story and its crazy cast of characters, including one that eventually got a nod in Ubisoft's 2016 shared-world shooter, The Division.

We'll give you a hint: it has to do with bowling.

As one YouTuber discovered while playing The Division, the folks at Ubisoft have a little bit of love for Grand Theft Auto 4, and — more specifically — Roman Bellic. You see, Roman became well known to GTA 4 players and, later, the internet at large, due to his constant desire to go bowling with his cousin, Niko. The team behind The Division apparently wanted to reference that running gag without being too on the nose. So somewhere in New York City (or Liberty City, for Niko and Roman), they hid a bowling ball with a simple, single-word inscription on it.

"Cousin."