Epic Games is making changes to what is easily one of the most controversial parts of Fortnite. The free-to-play battle royale game has been out for seven years now. Over this seven years, it has changed and evolved mightily. What has been consistent though is the talking point of aim assist with controllers. Naturally, controller players are in favor of aim assist, while keyboard and mouse players have been vehemently against it. That said, the competitive landscape is currently dominated by keyboard and mouse players, suggesting controller aim assist needs a buff. That isn’t what it’s getting, but it is getting changes that Epic Games hopes will improve aim assist and make controllers more viable in competitive play in the long term.
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More specifically, this week Epic Games ushered in a new era of aim assist in Fortnite called “human-like aim assist,” which takes away the superhuman aspect of aim assist in favor of a more human-like assistance, or at least this is the aim and pitch. In the short, aim assist won’t be as good in the immediate, but it should allow Epic Games to tweak it in the future in favor of getting closer to something that is more replicative of the human experience and less robotic as a result. This in turn should allow for more finer tuning that will close the gap between keyboard and mouse and controller over time.
“Excited to grab your controller and start playing? On all platforms (console, PC, mobile), v31.20 introduces human-like aim assist for controller players, which models human reaction time while trying to better match how unassisted keyboard + mouse players track moving targets,” says Epic Games of the change. “Human-like aim assist allows for more balanced tuning for controller players of all skill levels – we’ll be closely monitoring its impact so that we can tune it just right!”
As players, the first wave of changes aren’t very noticeable, but over time as Epic Games tweaks this new system more this may change. And if it achieves its goal, it may put an end to the controversial discourse around aim assist that is a part of competitive discourse not just in Fortnite, but all competitive gaming.
