Leaked GTA 6 footage prompts hot debate about refilling video game gas tanks

According to Kotaku, a new leak of purported game footage from a site called Cyberleek has stirred an ancient debate over how much “realism” should matter in a video game that lets players go berserk on a digital playground with bazookas, pool cues, and airliners, which they can use to decimate any fleshy surface or populated area their twisted minds can imagine. The scrubbed footage has since appeared on other social media platforms, with users noting that among the various activities engaged in by the game’s criminal duo, Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos—basketball, various felonies, walking around—one of them appears to be a fuel mechanic that could require players to pull over to the nearest gas station to top off their tanks before they cruise toward their latest atrocity. 

While we’ll politely sit out this debate, there is one aspect folks are missing from this Great Gas Debate: The psychological effects such a fuel mechanic might have on digital carjackers. Will the obligation to keep their illicitly acquired vehicles fueled up, the most basic form of preventative care, compel thieves to give more of a rip about what they’ve just ripped? Will players, for instance, feel less inclined to leap out of their sports car at 120 miles an hour as it careens into a bus full of tourists, when they’ve just taken time out of their hurly-burly criminal lives to ensure it has enough gas to get them where they need to go? Will GTA 6 inadvertently create a generation of car-savvy players who spend their precious playtime polishing their shiny autos in their fake driveways as Queen’s “I’m In Love With My Car” pipes in from the garage boombox (provided Rockstar pays for the song’s license)? Time will tell. Until then, we can only speculate on this alleged new feature’s effects until Grand Theft Auto 6 hits PlayStation and Xbox consoles on November 19.