Shoving & rescuing: the button nobody uses

Most civilian deaths are grabs — and most players watching a teammate get grabbed do the wrong thing: swing wildly, or panic-shoot. The right answer is the button they already have: Shove (the grab button, doubling as a shove for civilians) is the easiest way to rescue a grabbed teammate or resident, even when you're unarmed. Most new players never use it once.

How rescues actually work

Your options when Michael has someone, best first:

1. 01

   Shove him. Run in, hit the grab/shove button. It breaks the grab, costs no item, needs no weapon. This is the play.

2. 02

   Interrupt from range. A thrown brick, lawn dart, or rake poke breaks a grab from distance — the ranged version when closing is suicide.

3. 03

   Let their knife do it. If the victim carries a grab-escape knife, they'll free themselves near-instantly. This is why slot 1 of the three-slot loadout is non-negotiable.

4. 04

   Never shoot mid-execution. Once the kill animation starts, Michael is completely immune — the ammo is wasted and the window for a shove is gone. Timing beats firepower.

The window

Grabs have a built-in clock: held too long without executing, the victim escapes on their own — and the victim is fighting a number-sequence minigame the whole time. Every second your shove-run buys is a second of that sequence. A rescue isn't one action; it's a pincer between your shove and their inputs.

Rescuing residents

The same shove frees grabbed NPCs — and residents are the scoreboard. An unarmed sprint-and-shove that saves a gold-dot Special Target is worth more than most fights you could have picked.