Right, before you groan too hard, I promise that after I write this I’ll take a break of indeterminate length from writing articles which amount to wondering aloud why a thing that’s in GTA 6 is in GTA 6. Cars which need refuelling. It’s not an addition there’d not been any hint was coming before today, as with the smell reaction system, leaks having hinted at fuel management all the way back in August.
Since that point, it’s been confirmed as in the version of the game Rockstar will be shipping to consoles (boo) next month and PC at some point after that. Edge’s GTA 6 long read notes the existence of fuel gauges and engine health readouts, but it also caveats them in what seems an insistence from Rockstar that the first of these features isn’t designed to make filling up something the player necessarily has to do often or spend much time on when they do.
GTA 6’s cars, according to Edge, can drive vast distances before they reach the point of running low on fuel, while refuelling is something you can do in quick and fuss-free fashion. On one hand, having cars that can barely drive three streets without sputtering to a halt and making the gas station experience a clunky chore that takes ages clearly would’ve both been terrible moves.
However, the fact the system’s lenience is being emphasised has me wondering why it was worth adding at all. To be fair, Edge do outline that the variable amounts of gas in tanks does work with other new mechanics to add more unpredictability to crime sprees and rewards taking a bit more time to prepare a battle plan for robberies. If there’s a chance that random ride you’d usually nick from an NPC on running out into the street with your loot might be running on fumes that won’t get you through the ensuing police chase, that makes having proper getaway arrangements made prior to the stick-up more important. Then again, it seems any weapons your character’s not got room to carry at any time are stored in their car’s trunk in GTA 6 – rather than just shoved in pockets that can somehow fit an RPG – so always bringing your own wheels along on a job might be a no-brainer regardless.
All that in mind, this fuel management feels to me like it might suffer a fate similar to vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker’s time mechanics. If you’ve not played Dawnwalker – you should, here’s my review – its devs Rebel Wolves based their story around giving the player 30 days and nights in which to find a way to save their family, lest mysterious consequences occur. Cue some folks feeling put off by the idea their adventuring would be restricted by any sort of time constraints, others concluding that the timer was too lenient to fulfil its role of focusing them on getting their task done in suitably rapid fashion, and people like me feeling like they had about the right amount of days left by the time they were in position to launch one of the game’s final missions.
Image credit: Rockstar Games
Managing fuel in games, especially ones in which people are used to being able to just get in a car and drive for as long as they fancy, tends to be similarly polarising. I can see some GTA 6 players raging against the idea that they’ve ever got to stop rampaging or partying to do something as mundane as fill up. I can see others being disappointed that, in trying to ensure that first group aren’t put off, Rockstar have diluted the mechanic to the point it’s not forcing players to fill up at a cadence that feels realistic in the way features like this are supposed to at their best. Many may end up thinking an ideal compromise has been reached. This can be the case with any feature in any game to a degree and all of us should at least try a game in the form its devs envisioned before resorting to moaning for more options or seeking out mods.
Though, as the driving games out there already prove, when it comes to fuel simulation it’s usually best for studios to go all-in on committing to the mechanic if they’re going to implement it, rather than trying to occupy a mushy middle ground. In full-blown sims like either of SCS’s truck sims, SnowRunner, and iRacing, it’s an obvious inclusion because the central appeal of those games lies in mirroring motoring in realistic detail. In open-world arcade racers like Forza Horizon, Need For Speed, and Burnout, it’s usually cast aside as the sort of thing that’d be more of an annoying limitation than a welcome wrinkle, with filling stations that do appear often limited to dishing out nitrous or boost for extra speed instead.
Up until now, GTA’s always fallen on the latter side of the fence and honestly seemed at home there. It’s been an action-filled crime romp, not a life sim, and its cars have been designed to best suit that identity. With 6, though, Rockstar are skewing harder into the latter, as they did with Red Dead Redemption 2. RDR2’s beloved, the majority of players could well end up adjusting to or appreciating this extra layer of thinking they’ll have to do whenever they fire up their wheels. In my estimation, however, fuel management’s the biggest risk Rockstar are taking with any of their new additions. The series is called Grand Theft Auto, after all. You’re only messing with a wheeled aspect of it so central that they’re right there in the name.