MikeShowSha, one of the content creators who attended the Rockstar North preview in July, revealed after the August 27 embargo lift that GTA 6's default sprint input is L3: a single click of the left thumbstick rather than the repeated button presses GTA players have used for over two decades. Push Square reported the change in September. Insider Gaming, which also covered it, framed the shift as flipping a 25-year series tradition, noting that L3 sprint is now the default in most modern action games while GTA and Red Dead Redemption 2 had both stuck with the older face-button scheme.
GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 both mapped sprint to repeated taps of X on PlayStation and A on Xbox by default. Players could remap buttons in both games, but L3 was not the out-of-the-box option. Rockstar has not explained the reasoning behind the change, and the studio has not confirmed whether GTA 6 will include a classic control preset for players who prefer the original layout.
MikeShowSha was among the creators whose preview access came with an embargo that lifted alongside the Extended Look on August 27. The session was the same one that produced Rob Nelson's figures on the 30fps frame rate target, the 80-hour story playthrough, and the absence of generative AI in the single-player campaign. The sprint detail emerged afterward, in Q&As where preview attendees have continued to work through what they saw. GTA 6 launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S.