Pop a door open, and a pumpkin rolls out of the car. Pop the hood open, and another one shows up. Pop all doors open, and you're getting four pumpkins, while witches and zombies walk around your vehicle. Don’t worry, your Rivian has not gone bananas. It is just the new OTA Halloween update.
The update turns pedestrians into zombies and witches riding brooms, and it does the same to cyclists or motorcyclists. No, no, don’t worry, this is not a horror movie released in time for Halloween. The central display shows animations that depict people as spooky characters.
Owners of Rivians find out that the update is available through their in-car screen. To access the features, they have to click the ‘Halloween’ tab under 'Settings,' and select the 'Make it Spooky' option. Once it is on, the accent lights on board the vehicle as well as the front and rear end light strips turn from white to green, as a reminiscence of the swamp monster.
Furthermore, when a door is open, a pumpkin will roll out the door. Open all doors of your Rivian, and pumpkins will roll out through all of them. It happens the same when the hood or lift gate of the R1S and R1T is popped open.
When locked or unlocked, the speakers of both the SUV and pickup truck play the famous organ sound associated with Halloween to make things even scarier. Or funny. Unless you hear it at night when your garage or driveway is in complete darkness.
The new Rivian Halloween features come with the 2023.38.0 over-the-air update. The update does not just bring along zombies and witches and pumpkins, but also some serious stuff, such as towing improvements and retuned Drive Modes app.
Rivian was originally planning to make the updates available on Halloween or at least toward the end of October. But owners of R1S and R1T vehicles claim that, in mid-October, the software tracker suggested that it would become available on October 21, and it did. The features will disappear from the menu once Halloween is over, so the Rivian owners will get rid of all the zombies, witches, and pumpkins in November.
"I hope they change the door locking sound to bats fluttering or something fun," a user suggested on the Rivian Forums.
Others are still looking for the OTA update, browsing through the menu: "Sat in the garage in my R1S looking for it until I nearly fell asleep."
"The kids love it," another one writes, "they are still waiting for owls. Told them we’re not going to see them this year."
Some owners find it amusing from a different perspective: "After all of the complaints about misidentified vehicles, they said Off it, we can just show it as whatever and people will enjoy."
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