grand theft auto online aggressive ai.jpg

It's been a while since we wrote about Grand Theft Auto Online - Grand Theft Auto V's multiplayer component - but this story is just too interesting to ignore. Brought to our attention by a gif-filled article over on Kotaku, there's a Grand Theft Auto Online conspiracy theory that suggests the game's artificial intelligence has recently been tweaked, resulting in aggressive drivers who purposefully try to cause damage to your vehicle. No, really, we're being serious.

Apparently, this theory has been floating about for some time now, with players sharing plenty of video evidence in order to support their claims. Looking at the aforementioned gifs on Kotaku, it definitely seems like something is going on, but has developer Rockstar really been fiddling with the game so that citizens are more likely to smash into your ride? It sounds like a long shot, but with so many reports of such instances from so many different players, it's at least worth questioning.

Some players have even started to wonder whether the introduction of more aggressive AI is actually a result of Rockstar trying to coax more people into buying Shark Cards, microtransactions which offer in-game cash for real world money. After all, you can lose a lot of potential in-game cash in Grand Theft Auto Online if a stolen vehicle that you're delivering to a client is damaged en route. More grounded theories claim that bug-fixing patches may be to blame, inadvertently causing the game to screw up elsewhere.

Regardless of what's actually going on, there's nothing quite like a good in-game conspiracy theory, is there? Do you play Grand Theft Auto Online? Have you noticed more aggressive AI? Make outrageous claims in the comments section below.

[source kotaku.com]