A GTA Online player is targeted by a griefer while they’re AFK, but the attempt to kill them doesn’t go according to plan.
Grand Theft Auto Online has all kinds of players, including those who are mostly in it to grief others. Entering a public lobby in GTA Online can easily lead to a player dying at least once due to the machinations of someone else, but it doesn't always work out in the attacking player's favor.
Such was the case for one player who was away from the game when they were suddenly targeted. However, in a funny turn of events, the attempt to ruin the player's day failed and left the GTA Online griefer fuming.
GTA Online player and Reddit user zooniVr shared a brief gameplay clip of the encounter. Their character, who can be seen standing completely idle, is suddenly run into by another player driving a car featuring the new chameleon paint jobs from GTA Online's Expanded and Enhanced version. The car strikes zooniVr directly and drives his character into a wall, where he falls to the ground. His health only diminishes a fraction of the bar, so the attacking player continues the assault, repeatedly backing up and running over zooniVr and finally opening fire on them, too.
However, all of this ends up being for naught. zooniVr returns to the game around the time their health becomes half empty, at which point they toggle open their menu and switch to passive mode. Passive mode prevents players from being harmed by others or attacking them themselves. In other words, once the mode was engaged, there was nothing the attacker could to do to inflict further harm. According to zooniVr, they sent angry, threatening messages to them shortly after, presumably infuriated that their griefing attempt failed so spectacularly.
Other players in the comments were quick to rally around zooniVr, sharing their own experiences of being targeted by griefers. It's not clear what, if anything, turned zooniVr into a target here, but some pointed out that the attacker was a low level, so perhaps they just saw them as an easy target given he was visibly AFK.
While passive mode is one option to avoid these kinds of confrontations, players rejoiced when GTA Online launched its most recent update. The update made it possible to run many missions, jobs, and sales without having to enter a public lobby, allowing players to perform these tasks completely solo or alongside friends in a GTA Online invite-only setting. This lets players complete their jobs and make some cash without others destroying their hard work before they can profit. However, random attacks like these will likely continue whenever players are in public lobbies. In such a situation, the only thing a player can really do is stay indoors, switch to a private server before going AFK, or come back at the perfect time to ruin the griefer's attempts, like zooniVr has.
GTA Online is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Sarah is an old-school gamer, and has been an editor and contributor for Game Rant since 2015. Sarah was introduced to the world of gaming via the Atari and original Game Boy. After meeting her first Chocobo in Final Fantasy Adventure, she never looked back. Sarah majored in game design in college and utilizes that knowledge to analyze games for her written content for the site.