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GTA Online A Safehouse in the Hills guide: Mansion upgrades, Michael mission, and more
D
Diego Perez
These expensive houses are reserved for the richest of the rich. If you're not already sitting on a stash of millions from a career of heisting and criminal enterprises, you're going to have to save quite a bit of money to afford one.
Thankfully, there are other things in the A Safehouse in the Hills update that don't cost millions of dollars. This is your complete guide to GTA Online's mansions update, including details on the best mansion upgrades and how to start the new story missions featuring Michael.
How to get a mansion in GTA Online
Mansions are available via a new in-game website, Prix Luxury Real Estate. You can buy mansions from your phone just like any other property—as long as you can afford them, of course.
There are three mansions for sale, each with a different price tag and location. The cheapest mansion is the Tongva Estate, priced at $11.5 million. The Vinewood Residence costs $12.2 million, and the Richman Villa is the most expensive property in the game at $12.8 million.
As long as you have the cash in your account, you can visit the Prix Luxury Real Estate website and become the proud owner of an exorbitantly expensive home. Mansions come with premium features like a 20-car garage and in-house salon by default. You can also adopt a dog or cat to keep you company!
Best mansion upgrades
Of course, GTA Online's mansions can also be tricked out with several upgrades and customizations. These go beyond cosmetic improvements too. Some mansion upgrades can seriously enhance your other criminal businesses.
Additional rooms
After choosing your mansion's cosmetic details like wallpapers and decor, you can purchase additional rooms for an extra fee.
- Armory: $720,000
- Arcade: $950,000
- Car Podium: $650,000
- Vehicle Workshop: $880,000
The Armory grants you access to the Mk. II weapon workshop in your mansion, letting you buy new weapons and customize existing loadouts. The Vehicle Workshop lets you customize your personal vehicles from your private residence, even letting you access Hao's Special Works, Benny's Original Motor Works, Drift Tuning, and more if you're a GTA+ member.
The Arcade and Car Podium are mainly just cosmetic bonuses. If you buy the Arcade room, you can play any arcade cabinets from the Pixel Emporium. The Car Podium lets you display one of your cars, but doesn't offer any special features. You'll have to move that car back to a garage if you want to drive it too.
Security
Security is hands-down the most important upgrade for GTA Online mansions. Priced at $1.75 million, the security team will protect your other businesses so you can relax.
If you hire a security team, your businesses will no longer be raided by law enforcement. This applies to every existing business in the game, including Nightclubs, Bunkers, and Motorcycle Clubs. This only works if your businesses already have security upgrades. Otherwise, the mansion security team will only reduce the chances of police raids happening.
When your business would have been raided, you'll just receive a text message from your AI assistant instead, letting you know that everything has been handled. This is a significant quality-of-life improvement that's more than worth the asking price.
AI assistant
Each mansion comes with an AI assistant to help you manage your businesses and other affairs. AI assistants are provided free of charge, but there are some key things to know before making your choice.
Each AI assistant has a different voice and personality. Angel, Haviland, and OG all have different voice lines, but they offer the same services. If you buy multiple mansions, the same AI will be shared between all of them. You can't assign specific AI assistants to each of your properties.
How to start the Michael mission in GTA Online
Other than the mansions, the return of Grand Theft Auto V protagonist Michael de Santa is the highlight of the A Safehouse in the Hills update. Unfortunately, there are some expensive roadblocks standing between most players and the new story missions.
In order to unlock the Michael mission in GTA Online, you need to buy a mansion. Any of the three will work, but remember that the cheapest is still $11.5 million. That's a lot of heists and grinding.
You also need to complete the KnoWay Out contact missions before you can meet Michael. These are centered around driverless taxis operated by the KnoWay company.
When you boot up GTA Online after the update, you'll receive a strange text message telling you to answer a payphone at a specific address. Head to the "A" icon on the map to meet Avi Schwartzman, your paranoid point-of-contact for KnoWay Out.
These are very simple contact missions that require you to wreak havoc with KnoWay's driverless vehicles and recover crucial documents to unveil a supposed government conspiracy. You can get all of them done in just an hour or two or even faster if you have a squad working together.
After completing all five missions either solo or with a team, Avi will warn you that KnoWay will definitely come back for revenge sometime in the future. That happens after you buy your first mansion.
Eventually, Avi will reach out and the mission will begin. You'll be notified of intruders at your mansion, and you'll work alongside Michael to defend your new home in a special mission called Home Sweet Home. That's the only mission with Michael, and it marks the end of A Safehouse in the Hills.
How to use GTA Online's mission creator
With GTA VI on the horizon, Rockstar has added one big new feature to Grand Theft Auto Online so the community can keep it flooded with new content for years to come.
A revamped mission creator was released alongside A Safehouse in the Hills, and you can make basically whatever you want with it. Just pause the game, navigate to the Online tab, select Rockstar Creator, and choose Create a Mission.
While the game has allowed players to create custom jobs and game modes for a while now, the new mission creator is on another level. You can create your own cutscenes, grant access to all interiors and special locations featured in other jobs, design custom objectives and enemies, and more.
Plenty of player-created missions have already popped up in GTA Online, and more will surely follow in the weeks to come. Rockstar has also created a few example missions to demonstrate the power of the mission creator. You can find them by pausing the game, navigating to the Online tab, and then choosing Jobs > Play Job > Rockstar Created > Mission Creator Content.
Check out the A Safehouse in the Hills update for GTA Online on Epic Games Store today!