GTA 6 Sounds Set to Feature Red Dead-Style Details, Like the Infamous Horse Testicles

For years, fans have traded theories about a vulgar little detail in Red Dead Redemption 2 that Rockstar Games never addressed publicly. That silence, combined with grainy and inconclusive footage, led some players to question whether the detail was ever meant to be there. Almost a decade on, Rockstar has finally confirmed that RDR2‘s infamous “horse balls” are real. The confirmation also gives players good reason to expect Grand Theft Auto 6 to be packed with similarly eccentric touches.

The revelation comes from a YouTube video by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who recently wrote a major GTA 6 cover story for the publication. The video collects numerous notes that didn’t make it into the final piece. One of them is an anecdote about Rockstar spending years trying to reinvent GTA 6‘s weapon wheel. At one stage, the studio scrapped the wheel entirely. After countless iterations on the weapon-selection system, though, Rockstar went back to the original wheel seen in GTA 6 footage.

The most startling disclosure, however, concerns RDR2‘s so-called horse balls. Roughly nine years ago, footage of the open-world western went viral after players spotted an odd animation. Arthur Morgan’s loyal horse appeared to have testicles governed by their own physics. Some players insisted the stallion’s anatomy visibly changed shape depending on the weather.

Despite years of debate, Rockstar never commented on the controversial feature. According to Schreier, the feature is genuine, but it was never an item on Rockstar’s production schedule. It ended up in the finished game because someone chose to work on it independently. Schreier doesn’t say whether this equine devotee was one person or a group. He did stress, however, that RDR2‘s long development period and the deep pockets of Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two, gave developers room to get creative with what they added to the game.

“I think there are going to be a lot of details like that within this game,” Schreier mused about GTA 6 while discussing RDR2‘s horse balls.

GTA 6 isn’t out yet, but Schreier’s prediction already looks well founded. The open-world crime epic is full of small touches, such as mud physics and intricate NPC dialogue systems, that show how far into the weeds Rockstar is willing to go. Whatever the studio did to create its bespoke horse balls may well be getting an upgrade too. Recently leaked footage of co-protagonist Jason Duvall in the nude had viewers noting that the character’s genitals have physics of their own. We don’t yet know whether players will be able to move them freely, but the game does include a nudist colony, where such physics would make perfect sense.

Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on Nov. 19.