US Army is enticing reenlistments with a 4-day pass to play GTA 6 when it drops in November

Some United States military members can get some time off to play Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches later this year, and all they need to do is give up at least two more years of their lives.

Yeah. Seriously. A US Army unit based in Georgia is offering a four-day pass to play GTA 6 when it launches on Nov. 19 as a reenlistment incentive, according to a new report by CBS News.

This means they will need to re-up for a minimum of two years and a maximum of six in exchange for just four days of game time, which is probably not nearly enough time to finish the massive open-world adventure. The report says that 20 soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia in the Army’s 9th Brigade Engineering Battalion (part of the 3rd Infantry Division) have already locked in this incentive as part of their reenlistment.

“The idea was to have a unique incentives program that connects to what soldiers are interested in,” said Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a 3rd Infantry Division spokesperson, in a statement to CBS. “The command team, in conjunction with the career counselor, wanted to get soldiers excited to reenlist.”

The military using incentives for reenlistments is nothing new, as it has often dangled things like a paid college tuition to sign up for service. Targeting gamers for enlistments is also commonplace at this point, especially as warfare itself becomes gameified with things like remote control drones that deliver casualties from the comfort of a screen and a controller.

It seems to me that this particular incentive seems mainly aimed at those who were going to reenlist anyway and will be on active duty for the game’s launch, because in any other situation it seems like a really tough sell. But that doesn’t make it feel any less icky, either.

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