GTA Online Halloween Events: Slasher, Masks and the Full History

Every October since 2015, Los Santos turns into a horror movie. Rockstar drops the Halloween Surprise update, GTA Online fills with fog, UFOs and masked killers, and one Adversary Mode always comes back to headline it: Slasher. Here is what the event actually is, how the Slasher mode works, how to grab the free masks, and how the whole thing has evolved across a decade of Halloweens.

The essentials:

• Halloween Surprise launched on 29 October 2015 and added Slasher, monster masks, face paints and the Flashlight weapon.
• Slasher pits one armed killer against up to seven Hunted players carrying only flashlights for the first three minutes.
• Free masks unlock through simple actions each year: logging in, finishing a Business Battle, completing a Franklin payphone hit, or collecting scattered pumpkins.
• The event returns every year, with new twists layered on top: the Slashers Event (2021), the Clone Slasher (2022), and a submarine-set Slasher mode aboard the Ramius (2025).
• Content only ever gets added, not removed: every Halloween Surprise mask, vehicle and mode from past years comes back on rotation during the current event.

Where it all started: Halloween Surprise, October 2015

Slasher first appeared in GTA Online on 29 October 2015, as the centerpiece of the Halloween Surprise update. The patch added monster-themed masks and face paints, a set of horror-inspired vehicles, and a new melee-adjacent weapon, the Flashlight, built specifically for the mode. It was one of the first times Rockstar treated Halloween as a recurring live-service beat rather than a one-off cosmetic drop, and the format it set - a spooky Adversary Mode plus limited-time free unlocks - is still the template a decade later.

How Slasher actually plays

Slasher is an asymmetric Adversary Mode. One player takes on the Slasher role, armed with a shotgun, and hunts up to seven other players who only have flashlights to see by and no way to fight back. For the first three minutes, survival is the only option: staying in the light, breaking line of sight, using the map's tight geometry against the killer. After that window closes, the tables turn - every surviving Hunted player is handed a shotgun of their own, and the round flips into a straight firefight against the Slasher.

That single twist is why the mode has lasted this long: it forces two completely different playstyles into one short match, stealth first, then a scramble for revenge. Rockstar has reused the structure for every Slasher variant since, including the versions set in tighter, more claustrophobic locations added in later years.

Free masks and how to earn them

Halloween Surprise always ties a handful of masks to simple, achievable tasks rather than grinding, which is why the event is popular even with players who never touch Adversary Modes. The exact list changes year to year, but the pattern has stayed consistent since 2015:

• Login bonus - just launching GTA Online during event week hands out a mask, no missions required.
• Business Battle or event participation - finishing a Business Battle, or another headline event mission, during the week unlocks a second mask.
• Franklin's payphone hit - completing the Halloween-specific Payphone Hit mission adds a mask straight to your wardrobe.
• Pumpkin collectibles - some years scatter a set of pumpkins across Los Santos; finding all of them pays out both a mask and a cash bonus.

Anything purchased or unlocked during a Halloween Surprise week stays in your wardrobe permanently, and the wider catalog of past masks resurfaces (often at a discount in the Casino Store or clothing shops) every time the event returns, so missing a specific year is rarely fatal to a collection.

A decade of Halloween Surprise, year by year

• 2015 - Slasher's debut, plus the first wave of monster masks, face paints and the Flashlight.
• 2016-2017 - the annual return format locks in: existing Halloween content comes back with discounts, largely on masks and horror-themed vehicles.
• 2019 - Peyote Plants (which let players transform into animals) are added to GTA Online for the first time during the Halloween event, alongside new Casino Store decor.
• 2021 - the Slashers Event debuts as part of the Los Santos Tuners update's Halloween week, adding new Slasher variants beyond the original.
• 2022 - the Clone Slasher, a new killer archetype, joins the Slashers Event rotation.
• 2025 - Halloween Haunts adds a Slasher mode set entirely inside the cramped corridors of the Ramius submarine, running alongside returning favorites Beast vs. Slasher, Judgement Day and Condemned, plus zombie survival events on Cayo Perico and at Ludendorff Cemetery.

What changed in 2025: Slasher goes underwater

The 2025 Halloween Haunts update kept the core Slasher formula - one killer, flashlights first, shotguns after three minutes - but moved it into the Ramius, the same submarine used in other GTA Online content, turning the map itself into the scare. Tight metal corridors with no long sightlines make the early flashlight-only phase far tenser than the mode's original open-map version. Rockstar ran the new mode at 2x GTA$ and RP for its first week (16-22 October) before folding it into the standing pool of Slasher variants that return every Halloween.

Alongside it, the update brought back Cayo Perico and Ludendorff Cemetery zombie survival events, UFO sightings across Southern San Andreas, and discounted Halloween vehicles like the LCC Sanctus motorcycle and the Albany Lurcher muscle car - on top of the usual free mask unlocks.

Where to go next

If Los Santos's horror side is what got you here, GTA 5's story mode has its own set of eerie spots worth a detour - see our guide to the game's creepiest and most haunted locations. For the Peyote Plants that first appeared in a Halloween update, the complete locations and animal list covers every transformation. Slasher isn't the only unusual thing hidden around the map either - the full random events list and the rare vehicles guide both turn up plenty that has nothing to do with Halloween at all. And if you'd rather trigger the chaos yourself in single-player, the full GTA 5 story mode cheat code list still works in 2026.

GTA Online keeps adding to Halloween Surprise instead of replacing it, so the safest bet for this year is the same as every year: log in during event week, do the free stuff first, then decide if the Slasher variant on offer is worth a full session.