You can hide from the cops on a bus in GTA 6, says Edge's cover story

You can lose the police in GTA 6 by getting on a bus. That's from Edge's issue 430 cover feature, out on 29 October, which the magazine wrote from a demo Rockstar North played for it with Rob Nelson, Phil Hooker and Aaron Garbut.

Hooker's logic is simple: "why would they search the bus unless they see you get onto it?" And the buses and trains actually run. Hooker says he's "memorised all of the routes", and his team once tried getting to Watson Bay on public transport alone, just to check the whole thing held together.

That bus trick tells you a lot about how the police work this time. Here's the rest of what Edge saw.

The cops only know what they've been told

Witnesses drive everything. Edge says NPCs react to what they actually see, and the police act on what's been passed to them. On screen that's a row of icons for what they know: your appearance, whether there were one or two suspects, your clothes, CCTV and your weapons. Our wanted system page has the whole thing from August's reveal onwards.

You can chip away at that list. Splitting Jason and Lucia up muddies the description, and changing clothes or dumping a gun knocks off an identifier. A gun on your back isn't treated like one in your hand, either. People react to a weapon they can see, but carrying one doesn't start a wanted level by itself.

The police have more kit than in GTA 5. Helicopters sweep for you with searchlights. In a night chase in the demo, officers laid a stinger strip, Nelson didn't spot it, and his motorbike's tyre went. Later an Alsatian ran Jason down on foot and pinned him, so the K9 units can actually take you in.

Sometimes the police car's the loot. While officers were busy arresting someone else, Nelson walked up to their car, opened the boot and took a shotgun, and they didn't react straight away. Edge only describes the police car, so whether you can loot anyone else is still open.

Fuel, finally

Every vehicle has a fuel gauge and an engine-health readout. Edge says filling up is quick, so it doesn't sound like a chore, but it's still something GTA 5 never asked you to think about.

Stealing cars to order

Car theft gets a job board. The WAINK app on your phone lists the cars fences want, with the model, the security and whether it's tracked. High-end cars can broadcast their location to the police, and owners can report a theft even with no tracker fitted. Fences usually have signal-blocking gear at their spots, and your pay depends on the state of the car when you drop it off. Our vehicle theft page has the full picture.

That cash matters, because Edge says some story missions need you to raise money before they'll start. The ways it lists are robbing gas stations, holding up jewellery stores and stealing cars for fences.

Hooker found his own way to rob a store cleanly. He cleared out the witnesses by winding up the customers and then apologising until they left. "I basically started picking fights with them, provoking them and then immediately defusing it," he told Edge.

Jason, Lucia and your criminal record

Jason and Lucia's relationship sits on a four-point scale, and Nelson puts it like this: "it's yours to keep or yours to lose." You build it by spending time together outside missions: walks on the beach, cycling, the gym (you'll need to buy a membership first) or just driving round Leonida. Nelson wouldn't say whether they can get married.

Then there's the Criminal Profile. Edge reports it runs from Professional to Irredeemable, with an angel icon at one end and a devil at the other. Knocking people out or scaring them off counts toward the Professional end. Rockstar says the profile affects the story, but it hasn't said how.

Honestly, the bus is the first thing I'm trying when the game's out on 19 November. The full 16-page feature is in Edge 430, on sale now.