GTA 6’s Fuel System, Longer Nights, and Police Dogs: Key Details from EDGE’s Preview

In GTA 6, stealing a car is only half the battle. You still have to lose the cops. An armed driver, an onboard tracker, a nearly empty tank, or a police spike strip could ruin your escape. EDGE’s extensive feature explores how these and other systems interact, changing the way familiar GTA activities play out.

Journalist Simon Parkin visited Rockstar North for a 90-minute demonstration of the game’s current build. Rob Nelson, the studio’s head of development and co-studio head, was on the controller. The feature appears in EDGE’s November issue, which went on sale on October 29, and is also available on GamesRadar. Here are the most interesting details.

One of the more intriguing details is fuel consumption, a mechanic that had already surfaced in leaks. Vehicles have fuel gauges and engine health indicators. Cars can cover long distances between fill-ups, and refueling is described as a quick stop. Even so, choosing a car now means considering how far it can take you before it needs gas.

That matters particularly during robberies. Players can leave a suitable getaway vehicle near a store in advance or try to carjack someone on the street. Taking the second option means risking a car with a tracker, an armed driver, or a tank that is almost empty.

An app called WAINK lists the models car fences are looking for, along with details of their security features, including tracking systems. Expensive cars are harder to steal, and an installed tracker can broadcast their location to the police. The fence usually has a signal jammer at the drop-off point, but players still need to get there. The car’s condition on arrival also affects the payout.

Personal vehicles, meanwhile, can be delivered through the Scooter Bros app. For a small fee, a courier brings the car over within seconds, then rides away on a scooter they brought along. The character’s weapons are stored in the trunk, making the service useful both for getting around and accessing their arsenal. During a robbery, though, there may not be time to wait for a delivery.

That makes sense: there are now concrete reasons to prepare for a job. The choice of vehicle, the fuel left in its tank, and the route to the fence can all affect how the same robbery plays out. Hopefully, refueling will remain an occasional quick stop rather than a mandatory break after every trip.

IGN’s interview and earlier leaks had already revealed that police take account of the characters’ clothing, their vehicle, and whether they were working as a pair. EDGE’s feature adds physical descriptions, weapons, and security camera footage to that list. Icons at the top of the screen show exactly what the police know.

Getting away means shedding those identifying details. Splitting up means Jason and Lucia no longer match the description of a couple. Changing clothes makes them harder to identify by their outfits. Ditching a weapon removes another identifying feature. The idea is clear: players should be able to see why the police are still after them and what they can change to reduce the risk of being recognized.

NPCs even respond differently depending on how a character carries a weapon. A shotgun slung over someone’s back gets a different reaction from one held in their hands: pedestrians might back away, scatter, or confront them. That does not mean a police chase starts immediately, though. The game leaves some room to back off before things escalate.

The police themselves can catch players off guard, too. During the demonstration, Jason and Lucia were trying to shake the cops on a motorcycle when Nelson missed a spike strip laid across the road — it was hard to spot in the dark. The front tire blew, throwing both characters over the handlebars. They tried to escape on foot, but a German shepherd from a K9 unit joined the pursuit, caught Jason, and pinned him to the ground.

In moments like these, GTA 6 requires players to adapt on the fly and respond to new threats. If these situations happen often enough and feel natural, escaping the police could become more engaging without simply adding more patrol cars to every chase.

Within the opening minutes of the demonstration, Nelson, playing as Jason, provoked a confrontation simply by staring too long at a man walking his dog. The man took offense, squared up, and let the dog off its leash. Jason ran, and the animal gave chase before soon losing interest and returning to its owner.

What’s striking is that a prolonged stare was enough to cause trouble. An NPC’s response depends on their personality, aggression, the circumstances of the encounter, what they have witnessed, and the player’s behavior. The same provocation can therefore produce different outcomes.

During a robbery, players cannot count on everyone simply panicking, either. A victim might strike back when the character turns away, while a gas station customer might intervene in a holdup. One driver might abandon their car when threatened at gunpoint; another might fight back with a weapon.

Other people can disrupt the player’s plans for less obvious reasons, too. During one getaway, Nelson was driving an old family station wagon when a customized SUV pulled up alongside him. Its young occupants kept challenging him to a street race until he finally agreed. The station wagon was hardly suited to the contest.

EDGE notes that the world contains plenty of semi-scripted encounters. But even an encounter designed in advance can happen at the worst possible moment and force players to change their plans. In this case, Nelson was trying to lose the cops and got pulled into a street race on top of that.

Game Informer had already covered storms visible from other parts of the map and puddles left behind after rain. EDGE goes into more detail about how weather affects vehicles and residents.

Clouds move independently, while weather is shaped by wind, humidity, fog, the time of day, and the season. Drive toward a distant storm and conditions will change gradually: the lighting shifts, rain begins to fall, and the asphalt gets wet. After the storm, water will still drip from buildings, and different surfaces will dry at different rates. Pedestrians, meanwhile, will seek shelter from the rain.

One particularly interesting detail concerns boats. Islands and buildings can shelter stretches of water from the wind. A boat might therefore have a smoother ride in one part of a bay before being rocked more heavily on open water.

Planes and helicopters will also be buffeted by storms. Spend too long in severe weather, and the aircraft can even sustain minor damage.

Weather becomes another factor to consider when traveling or making a getaway. If a boat really is easier to handle in a sheltered bay, players will have a reason to seek out calmer water rather than always taking the shortest route.

GTA 6’s day-night cycle has been lengthened. Sunsets linger, and there is more time to get things done after dark. EDGE gives no exact figures, but it sounds like there should be less reason to worry about a repeat of RDR2, where sunrises and sunsets were over almost before they began. According to Nelson, testing the game with GTA 5’s timings made time feel as though it was passing too quickly for such a detailed world. The developers slowed the cycle down as a result.

Players will also be able to travel around Leonida on public transport, with EDGE describing bus routes and trains. Phil Hooker, one of the heads of development, admits that he regularly waits for buses, checks whether they arrive on time, then rides around the state watching the world go by.

Aaron Garbut, another head of development and Rockstar North co-studio head, also talks about simply spending time in this world: picking up cigarettes and beer, spending a day riding the train, or heading to a club. During the demonstration, Jason took a cigarette from his inventory and lit it.

These details give players more reasons to linger in Leonida between missions: take a longer stroll through the city at night, try an unfamiliar route, or watch the locals go about their lives. That sense of everyday life is crucial to immersion.

According to Rockstar, Leonida’s total landmass is almost as large as the playable maps of GTA 4, GTA 5, and RDR2 combined. But the appeal of exploration also depends on what fills that space.

Garbut says there are far more interiors to explore, and even after years on the project, he still comes across unfamiliar places. Photos, personal belongings, and furnishings offer a sense of the owners’ lives, even if players never meet them.

Garbut offers an example from one of those homes. He found photographs of a dog, then discovered a room the animal had trashed and soiled while left alone. Jason reacted to the unpleasant smell by grimacing and recoiling. That response had originally been created for one specific location. It was later expanded into a broader system so the characters could react to unpleasant smells elsewhere, too. There was no need to script a separate scene for that house.

Details like this make exploration more rewarding. A location tells its own little story, and the character’s behavior becomes part of it.

Nelson had already discussed the relationship system and Criminal Profile with IGN. EDGE adds a few details. The relationship system measures closeness on a four-point scale. Spending time together usually brings Jason and Lucia closer, whether they are walking, cycling, working out, or simply driving around. They will need a gym membership to work out, by the way.

Criminal Profile tracks how the protagonists behave when committing crimes. The feature names the two ends of the scale: Professional and Irredeemable. Players decide how far to go during robberies and confrontations: whether to intimidate someone, incapacitate them, or kill them. The way they habitually handle these situations shapes their profile, which affects how the story unfolds.

Players cannot completely reinvent the characters’ lives, however: simply giving up crime is not an option. Yet wanting to escape that life is an important theme of the story. Jason and Lucia want more than money and expensive possessions. They want to change their lives, and whether their relationship survives depends largely on the player.

Rockstar’s developers had already explained to LOVE Magazine why they avoid jokes with a short shelf life. Speaking to EDGE, Nelson elaborated on how humor grows out of the character of individual towns and the people who live there. He says subjects for satire gradually emerge from local politics and people’s hopes and fears. Local gangs also play a part.

He offers a hypothetical example: a particularly patriotic town, a biker gang that loves the police, and a mayoral election campaign. That setting provides material for campaign ads, characters, overheard conversations, and even details inside people’s homes. Different teams handle brands, billboards, radio ads, and television shows, but together these elements need to convey the character of a particular place.

That makes satire another reason to explore the world: listen to pedestrians, read local ads, and look around people’s homes. Together, those observations build a picture of a town and the people who call it home.

The feature also covers development, though many of these details were already familiar from earlier previews and interviews. EDGE revisits the Florida research trips, RDR2’s influence, collaboration across Rockstar’s studios, and regular playtesting involving company leadership.

Perhaps Nelson’s most reassuring statement comes at the end of the feature: GTA 6 is ready. As launch approaches, there are fewer things the developers are allowed to change, even if the habit of constantly refining the game is hard to break. The team now has to let go of a project it has worked on for so many years and hand it over to players. That confidence is encouraging to hear.

Yes. Vehicles use fuel, but cars can go a long way between fill-ups. Refueling is described as a quick stop.

EDGE reports that Leonida has bus routes and train services that players can use to get around the state.

Wind and waves affect boat handling, while storms can buffet aircraft and cause minor damage. Pedestrians also seek shelter from bad weather.

Yes. During the demonstration, a German shepherd from a police K9 unit caught Jason and pinned him to the ground after a failed motorcycle getaway.

Nelson declined to confirm or deny whether marriage is possible, leaving the question open.