Rockstar’s games are known for their huge open worlds and the strange characters players can encounter in them. Both the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises are packed full of supernatural characters that players can easily run across, though not all are as obvious as others.
One Rockstar fan has been investigating the studio’s most disturbing supernatural characters. Here are the top five, and what makes them so creepy in their games.
Francis Sinclair is a character in Red Dead Redemption 2 involved in the Stranger side-mission “Geology for Beginners.” He can be found in his home just outside Strawberry, and asks the player to find him several rock carvings across the map. The carvings begin to hint that Sinclair isn’t all that he claims, depicting aliens, DNA, and nuclear mushroom clouds. Once the player has completed the mission, they will eventually be invited back to Francis’ home, but instead of finding him there, they will find a woman holding a baby version of Francis, who still has his distinct red birthmark on his face.
In the same room are a series of drawings which seem to show Francis travelling throughout time. To make things weirder, his description matches those of the descendants of Kraff in Grand Theft Auto’s parody cult, the Epsilon Program. Like descendants of Kraff, Francis has a facial birthmark, and like all members of the Epsilon Program, he wears blue. The program claims that the world is only 157 years old, but also that it doesn’t ages. Perhaps this lends some insight into how Francis is able to travel through time.
Cris Formage is creepy even before players get a glimpse at the true extend of his powers. He’s introduced in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as the founder of the Epsilon Program, appearing on Lazlow Jones’ radio show to deny that the program is a cult. His voice alone is creepily monotone, and the calm confidence with which he delivers his ridiculous claims makes him quite intimidating. At first it’s Cris Formage’s unstable personality that makes him off-putting. He’s described in San Andreas as an “alcoholic turned self-deifying cultist,” and if the player betrays him as Michael in GTA 5, they’ll get a phone call where he threatens to turn them into “the fertilizer of the 10th Paradigm.”
Cris gets a lot more creepy–or funny, depending on the player’s point of view–in Grand Theft Auto Online. After the player’s first death, Cris Formage appears to them, floating in a sea of white light. “You see? They said I was a charlatan. A fraud, a nothing, but I am a miracle. Look and behold in wonder. And ask yourself what does mighty Cris Formage leader of the Epislon Program, do with his enormous power. Why he uses it to watch people of course. Join me any time you like, in watching. They never find out and they can’t harm you. It is the greatest pleasure on earth. And trust me. I have lain with a multitude of women.”
This appears to confirm that Cris Formage is in fact in contact with – or is himself – a higher being within the GTA universe. If Francis Sinclair is anything to go by, it’s likely the Red Dead Redemption universe as well. Whether or not his unnerving presence will be felt in the franchises’ futures remains to be seen.
Madam Nazar is a fortune teller who can be found in Red Dead Online. If the player hangs around her long enough, she’ll talk about some of the places she’s been and the people she’s met in Red Dead’s version of America. What’s creepy about her, however, is that she seems to know about a huge amount of events in Red Dead 2, many of which haven’t happened at the time of Red Dead Online.
For example, Nazar will idly comment on a man who can be found having hanged himself. “My poor, little sculptor. He will labor so hard and she deserves so little.” The man can be found hanging by some scaffolding on a mountainside in Grizzlies East, where he began carving his wife’s face before she ran away with a “French scribbler.” This is likely a reference to Charles Chatenay from the Stranger side-mission “The Artist’s Way.”
She even seems aware of Francis Sinclair. “Do not ask me about the painting in the rock. Some things are not for even me to know.” In addition, she appears to have knowledge of ghosts. “Poor little Anges, she is so sad. I keep her company but I am not who she wants.” This is a reference to Agnes Dowd, a ghost who can be found in-game who killed herself after being abandoned by a lover. Nazar will also reference “many spirits trapped” in Jorge’s Gap, which is full of zombies in the original game’s Undead Nightmare. Not only that, but Nazar can also be found as a mechanical fortune teller in Grand Theft Auto Online, where she also reveals prophecies which lead to in-game locations long after her death.
The Strange Man is possible the most enigmatic character in the entire Red Dead franchise. It’s heavily implied that he may be the grim reaper, or possibly even god himself. He calls himself “an accountant…in a way,” and seems to have knowledge of both John Marston’s impending death and the good or bad deeds he’s done in his life.
In Red Dead 2, the theory that the Strange Man is the Grim Reaper is lent even more credence. A stranger in New Austin will claim that a man in a “black suit and big top hat” cursed the town of Armadillo, which has suffered several different plague outbreaks in a row. An abandoned Shack in Bayall Edge contains an unfinished painting of the Strange Man if the player visits as Arthur Morgan. If they visit as John, the painting will complete itself over the next few days, and John will briefly see the Strange Man in the mirror, but he will disappear if John turns around. Death stalks the protagonists of Red Dead, and the Strange Man is one of the world’s creepiest reminders of their fates.
Jesse is heavily implied to be Jesus Christ himself in the Grand Theft Auto universe. While he appears at first to just be a Jesus impersonator, when he’s killed one of his eyes will become swollen shut, a reference to The Passion of the Christ. To add to his divinity, he seems to know how to best interact with the different GTA character before he’s even met them–he’ll show resentment towards his father if he’s talking to GTA‘s Trevor, and love for his father if he’s talking to Franklin. Between Jesse, the Strange Man, and Cris Formage, Rockstar’s universe is one of the weirdest is gaming, and sometimes the same characters are both comical and cosmological.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
![\"IT電腦補習](\"http://itteacheritfreelance.hk/test/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/logo2-2.png\"){kind=logo}
www.itsec.hk
www.itsec.vip
www.itseceu.uk
Leave a Reply