One GTA fan has proved that hours spent in the virtual world can prove helpful in real life, as their time spent gaming literally 'saved their life' when faced with a terrifying situation inside their car.
Many people gravitate towards the gaming world as a means to escape, and there are certainly plenty of vast worlds filled with fantasy for you to choose from, yet it's also no surprise that some of the biggest games out there seek to emulate real life.
The Grand Theft Auto series has always been a go-to for many gamers when it comes to this, as while some entries in the series have looked back in time, most offer a fairly accurate - if not exaggerated and satirical - reflection of current day America and some of its biggest celebrities too.
One perhaps underrated aspect of this is the level of realism that you also find in many of the game's systems, most prominently of which includes the vehicles that you use to explore the vast in-game maps.
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You'll spend a lot of time driving to and from many of the game's landmarks so you're bound to get pretty good behind the wheel - and one gamer used that learned expertise to deal with a terrifying situation in real life.
Shared on the r/GTA subreddit, u/Huge-Minute-951 explained how their experience playing the Grand Theft Auto series might actually have 'saved their life':
"I've had my drivers license for about 3 months and f***ed up a turn onto a highway onramp from the overpass. I ended up drifting, faving the edge of the onramp for a brief second, but I reflexively managed to correct the car," they explain.
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"If I had never played GTA I wouldn't have known how to get out of a spin so quickly and probably would have ended up in a mess. Thank you GTA for teaching me how to deal with dangerous driving situations."
Obviously there's no way to prove that this person wouldn't have been able to deal with the situation without their experience with GTA, but it would be remiss to ignore the countless practice they'd likely have undertaken in-game that equally applies to real life.
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Dealing with a car accident is something that's difficult (and undesirable) to practice, but the stress-free virtual world offers a perfect learning environment for you to build up the muscle memory for situations like these.
"People don't give video games credit and I'm surprised a driving learning tool hasn't been made by official bodies like the DVLA (UK driving license providers)," ponders one of the comments underneath, and it's certainly an intriguing proposition.
Another adds that "people joke about it, but video games have legit been proven to improve hand-eye coordination and reflex response time."
Not everyone has had their driving skills magically improved by playing Rockstar's games though, as a third comment outlines that "the only thing playing GTA ever did for my driving is make me drive like a lunatic lol. Especially in the golden age of GTA V."