- With the launch of Season 22 Shockwave, Apex Legends nerfs aim assist to promote competitive integrity.
- Aim assist has been nerfed by about 25 percent, which means it has been reduced from 0.4 to 0.3 for controllers.
- This change only applies to controller players on PC and console players cross-playing into PC lobbies.
Hello, my fellow Apex Legends players! If you’re a mouse and keyboard warrior like me, I know you clicked through with the same urgency with which Octane injects stim into his veins. Aim assist has been a long-standing topic of debate in the Apex Legends community, and we have been demanding a nerf to balance it out.
No one likes getting one-clipped the moment they face a controller player. Aim assist is too strong; even pros like Phillip “ImperialHal” Dosen agree as they switched inputs after years of playing on M&K. However, five years after the game’s release, Respawn Entertainment is finally heeding the community’s complaints and nerfing aim assist.
Yes, you are not dreaming. Aim assist will be nerfed with the release of Apex Legends Season 22, Shockwave. Respawn confirmed this change to Beebom in an online press briefing. Here are the key takeaways for the aim assist nerf in Apex Legends:
- Aim Assist for controllers has been nerfed by about 25 percent in Season 22. In simple terms, this means aim assist has been reduced from 04. to 0.3 in Apex Legends.
- This change only applies to controller players on PC and players cross-playing into PC lobbies from Xbox and PS consoles.
- The strength of aim assist remains untouched at 0.6 for players in console-only lobbies. They’ve got bigger problems to deal with, though (ahem 9-12 man teams).
During the briefing, Apex Legends Game Designer Eric Canavese said, “Simply put, aim assist is just too strong in these PC lobbies. So, [we’re] reducing its strength by about 25 percent.” It seems like the weight of the community’s complaints about aim assist being too strong got too heavy for Respawn to ignore; hence, the nerf.
Canavese added that the aim assist nerf wasn’t as easy as tweaking a number and required looking at a lot of numbers and a lot of internal testing to refine the output. Furthermore, players will be even happier to know that “aim flinch” has been removed from weapons and most abilities.
This is a welcome change not only for pros but also for casual Apex Legends players. This change, though minor, helps promote competitive integrity in the high-tier lobbies and the competitive scene. Most Pro teams in ALGS (Apex Legends Global Series) are currently comprised of two or more controller players, just because of how strong the input type is. M&K players are few and far between, mostly in IGL and anchor roles.
The aim assist nerf in Apex Legends Season 22 might ignite the passion of new as well as veteran M&K players, making their return to competitive play later this year.
That said, Respawn will continue to monitor aim assist strength and make further adjustments if necessary to maintain competitive integrity. Moreover, if you were wondering if aim assist will ever go away in our beloved hero shooter, we got an answer for that too. Canavese, in the briefing, added that aim assist will never be removed from Apex Legends as it is a “critical” feature for controller players. The dev team believes (and we already know) that it helps bridge the gap between input types.
So yes, Respawn didn’t make empty promises when it said it was “not happy” with aim assist and was looking to better balance controller input in coming seasons.
