GTA 6 Drops Iconic "Tap X to Sprint" Controls After Decades

GTA 6 isn’t your average sequel, since it aims to fundamentally tweak every element of Rockstar Games’ hit franchise.

Indeed, the team has positioned this particular entry in the series as the culmination of everything that has come up to this point, meaning that GTA 6 is making numerous changes to the series formula.

Even smaller elements like the game’s control scheme have received an overhaul, with GTA 6 finally doing away with Rockstar Games’ classic “tap to sprint” mechanic.

Tax X To Sprint Is Going Away

Reports have confirmed that Rockstar Games will no longer require players to repeatedly tap a single button to sprint with Jason or Lucia in GTA 6.

This control scheme has persisted in the studio’s games for as long as most fans can remember. Both GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 also featured this control scheme, but fans will remember the same input from older Grand Theft Auto titles as well.

While many grew to accept the tap to sprint as a unique quirk of Rockstar Games’ titles, fans did feel that it was a relic of the past. Rockstar Games seems to agree, which is exactly why the team has decided to move on.

In GTA 6, players will simply be required to tap L3 and hold forward on the left analog stick to initiate a sprint. This is a tried-and-true input for sprinting that has been part of numerous games over the years, so it should work well in GTA 6.

The objective behind this revamp seems to be part of Rockstar Games’ more involved gameplay for its latest Grand Theft Auto entry. By relying on just the analog stick for sprinting, players will be able to have more room for other actions in GTA 6.

This means that firing while sprinting and other actions will be possible in a way that simply didn’t exist in prior Grand Theft Auto titles. Note that the PC version of Rockstar Games titles already had a similar input, so fans will be glad to see it being adopted universally.

Fans Had Been Asking For This Change For A While

Following this update, many fans appear to be glad that Rockstar Games has finally done away with its outdated input for sprinting.

Many fans already thought the age-old method of constantly tapping a single button to move faster was outdated by the time GTA 5 launched in 2013. Similarly, fans were not too happy to see it return in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Following the announcement, some even joked that their right thumbs have visible marks after having tapped X/A constantly over the last decade when playing GTA 5. This should no longer be a problem by the time GTA 6 arrives in November.

Here’s hoping Rockstar Games has made similar tweaks to modernize other outdated elements of the Grand Theft Auto series. So far, the team seems to be doing everything right, so expectations are certainly high in this regard.

What do you think of the new sprinting input in GTA 6? Were you a fan of the tap-to-sprint control scheme that the series had in the past? Share your thoughts with us on GTABase, and make sure to visit other sections to learn more about Rockstar Games’ upcoming blockbuster.