GTA VI reportedly moves sprint to the left stick by default

GTA VI will have players click the left stick (L3) to sprint by default, according to Italian YouTuber MikeShowSha. He was one of the content creators Rockstar invited to its closed-door preview of the game, and he mentioned the detail in a Q&A video on his channel. Eurogamer and Insider Gaming both picked up the claim.

If it holds, it ends a habit that goes back almost 25 years. Grand Theft Auto games have long made you sprint by tapping a face button, X on PlayStation and A on Xbox, although some Rockstar games did offer alternate control schemes. Insider Gaming points out that in older entries, tapping faster tended to make your character run faster, which turned every foot chase into a small test of thumb endurance.

The L3 setup itself is not new to the series. According to Insider Gaming, MikeShowSha confirmed that GTA 5 already let players change the controls so L3 could be used to sprint. What changes in GTA VI is that this becomes the default.

Eurogamer notes that clicking the stick has been the standard sprint input in most shooters for well over a decade. You click to start running, and easing off the stick brings you back to normal speed.

The video is entirely in Italian, so the detail reached a wider audience only after players spotted it and shared it on Reddit and social media.

Some caution is in order. Rockstar has not said anything about the controls officially, and the report rests on one creator's account. Default settings can also still change before launch.

The preview itself was a small affair. Rockstar showed GTA VI to a limited group of media outlets and content creators behind closed doors, ahead of a Netflix special that featured almost half an hour of raw gameplay.

Eurogamer also reports that GTA VI runs at 30 FPS on consoles and that Rockstar is reportedly unsure about adding a 60 FPS option. If a Performance mode does arrive, it would come at some point after launch.