GTA 6 changes the run button after 25 years: no more mashing X

Sprinting stops being tapping X or A and moves to L3, like any shooter. It looks like a minor detail and says a lot about where the game is heading.

For nearly 25 years, Grand Theft Auto has done something no other game does: to sprint, you repeatedly tap a face button. X on PlayStation, A on Xbox. Mash it. Anyone who has played GTA has it in muscle memory.

In GTA VI that ends. Sprinting moves to L3: click the left stick.

How it works now

It is the standard scheme in every shooter for over a decade. Click the left stick and the character starts running; release or ease off the stick and you return to normal speed. No mashing.

Why such a small detail says so much

It frees the right thumb

This is the real reason, and it is purely functional. With sprint on X, your right thumb was busy tapping exactly when you most need it for the camera. Running and looking at once was awkward, and in on-foot firefights it actively got in the way. Moving to L3 frees that hand.

It fits everything else

This is not an isolated decision. It runs the same direction as the rest: driving described as "more challenging", a body-weight system, refuelling at gas stations. Rockstar is moving GTA toward simulation, and mashing a button to run is a convention inherited from an era when controllers had fewer inputs.

And it is a real cost for veterans

It should be said: anyone who has played for two decades will press X to run for the first few hours. That is twenty-five years of muscle memory. Adapting takes an afternoon, but it is real.

Source: the detail comes from a Q&A video by Italian creator MikeShowSha, one of the invitees to the private preview, reported by Eurogamer.