Devotees of the western epic Red Dead Redemption 2 have stumbled upon a baffling secret that has lain hidden within the game for over seven years, igniting a fresh wave of detective work across its community.
The Nocturnal Web Discovery
The intrigue began in December 2025, when a Reddit user known as FL4VA-01 spotted a peculiar spider web pattern etched onto a telephone pole on the outskirts of Saint Denis. The catch? This mysterious marking only becomes visible at 3am in-game time and vanishes precisely an hour later at 4am.
This initial sighting, later detailed in a video by YouTuber Strange Man, prompted players to scour the vast landscape. Their efforts revealed identical webs on several other telegraph poles scattered across the map. Each pole also bore a distinct spider symbol. When these symbols were plotted on the game's map, a pattern emerged: the end of each leg pointed directly to the location of a webbed pole.
A Trail of Cryptic Clues
Following the map to the central point of this spider symbol led investigators to a tree marked with another web and the letter 'N'. Heading north as instructed, they found a pole that, when shot, revealed directions to proceed five poles west.
This next step unveiled a pole adorned with the symbols 'NW' and a guitar icon. The community widely interpreted this as a signal to head towards a guitar located inside Fort Wallace. The hunt, however, has since hit a snag. The latest clue, found on a roof tile above the fort's guard tower, features two etched bird symbols, leaving players currently stumped on the next move.
"It's thoroughly bonkers stuff, yet the evidence is pretty convincing," observers note. Crucially, players have verified this intricate puzzle has been part of the game's code since its 2018 launch, ruling out a recent addition.
Connections and Speculation
This isn't Rockstar's first flirtation with arachnid-based anomalies. GTA 5 also features spider webs that materialise at specific hours in two locations, though they have never triggered a treasure hunt of this scale. While this fuels speculation about a potential connective thread between the game worlds, the purpose of the Red Dead Redemption 2 mystery remains unknown.
With the community still piecing the puzzle together, the question lingers: will they solve it before the highly anticipated release of GTA 6 in November 2026? Given the clues' age, they are unlikely to be teasing a sequel to Red Dead. For now, the hunt continues, proving that even after seven years, the dusty trails of America's virtual frontier still have secrets to yield.
