GTA Online Passive Mode: How To Use and Turn On & Off

GTA ONLINE PASSIVE MODE: HOW TO USE AND TURN ON & OFF

August 15, 2022

For quite some time GTA Online has had something of a griefers problem, which is a bit like saying water is wet when it comes to stating the obvious.

Rockstar knows this, and in the GTA Online Summer Update, titled GTA Online: The Criminal Enterprises, they intend to heavily nerf the griefers favorite Oppresssor MK II flying bike.

But if you would prefer to just enjoy the game and avoid conflict entirely, there’s always the option to play GTA Online with Passive Mode turned on.

If you’ve never heard of this, or only recently started playing the game, then read on, we’ll explain everything you need to know about Passive Mode.

What is Passive Mode in GTA Online

Passive Mode is essentially a way to play the game without, including the various missions and more, without engaging in any PVP related aggression. It’s introduced to new players the first time you die in GTA Online.

Once you turn on passive mode, players will be prevented from using any weapons. Equally, it is impossible to shoot at a fellow player in passive mode.

Any weapons that deal area damage cannot damage or kill passive players, and any weapons with a lock-on ability, such as the GTA Online Homing Launcher and various Vehicle-Mounted Missiles, cannot target Passive Players.

When a player is in passive mode, they will appear to all other players as a semi-transparent ghost and when they enter a car, this ghost mode is applied to the vehicle too

How To Turn On Passive Mode

If you’ve had enough of being killed and want to enjoy the game in peace, here is how you can turn on passive mode in GTA Online:

Open your interaction menu. You can access this menu by pressing M on PC, holding down the touch pad on PS4 and PS5, and holding the View button on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
Scroll down to “Enable Passive Mode” which is just below the ‘kill yourself’ menu option.

In addition to the Interaction Menu, GTA Online players can also turn on passive mode from the Pause Menu, under “Online > Options > Enable Passive Mode”.

How To Turn Off Passive Mode

To disable passive mode in GTA Online, simply follow the same steps as when you enabled passive mode.

Open your interaction menu
Scroll down to “Disable Passive Mode”

Once again, you can also do this from the GTA Online Pause Menu by following this path:”Online > Options > Disable Passive Mode”.

GTA Online Passive Mode Not Working?

If you’re having issues with Passive Mode in GTA Online there could be a really simple explanation.

For one, if you kill any fellow players the option to enable Passive Mode will become unusable for the next 2 minutes. Likewise, there’s a 5 minute cooldown applied to players who manually deactivate Passive Mode. So you can’t keep jumping in and out.

Finally, it’s worth noting that when you’re in passive mode the game can choose to disable passive mode if you enter certain vehicles. For instance, entering a weaponized vehicle, such as the Rhino Tank or the Terrorbyte, will disable passive mode after a 30-second delay. During this 30 seconds the players can’t use the vehicle weapons either. Similarly, certain aircraft will disable Passive Mode instantly as soon as you get in, such as the SuperVolito Carbon, Luxor Deluxe and more.

Finally, when in passive mode, players will not be able to take part in Freemode Events or Business Battles and if you try to enable it during these you will be kicked from the event in question.

That’s everything you need to know about Passive Mode in GTA Online. If you’re looking for more GTA guides then follow the links below for more helpful tips, tricks, and explainers.