The Finals Nerfs Aim Assist in New Update

The Finals update takes aim at aim assist.

By Tanner Dedmon

The Finals players who've kept up with community's pain points and Embark Studios responses to those issues will know all too well by now the aim assist arc the game's gone through. Players pointed out the strengths of aim assist and its ability to snap right onto enemies even when using high-powered weapons like the scoped SR-84 rifle, and complaints about aim assist quickly led to players asking for input-based matchmaking. Embark Studios said recently that it'd have some updates on some of the most pressing issues in The Finals, and this week, a new patch for the game addressed one of those frustrations by nerfing aim assist.

Patch 1.4.1 for The Finals is technically regarded as a "small patch," but as Embark Studios said in its announcement about the update's release, it's still a big one. Embark Studios thanked players for their feedback and said the changes in question were made possible by the community. 

"These changes are the result of an in-depth review of how aim assist works – something we've only been able to validate with a player base as large as ours (thanks so much for playing our game, yolks!)," Embark Studios said in its post about the update.

The patch notes in question can be seen below with every single change geared towards aim assist or aiming in general

The Finals Patch 1.4.1 Notes

  • Zoom Snapping Angular Velocity now has a max cap, preventing unintended rapid 90-degree turns.
  • Camera Magnetism will be reduced to 35% from 50%, making player aim less sticky and lowering controller accuracy.
  • Zoom Snapping Time will be reduced to 0.25s from 0.3s.
  • Zoom Snapping will be removed from the SR-84 Sniper Rifle, Revolver, LH1, and all Shotguns, as it buffs them more than other weapons.
  • Aim assist will ignore invisible players, fixing a bug with the existing system.
  • Clients running key re-mapping programs on PC will not have access to aim assist.

The parts about camera magnetism as well as the zoom snapping are two areas in particular which players have particularly taken issue with during the discussions about aim assist. Clips from players showed how easy it was to lock onto people right away with everything from a sniper rifle at long ranges to shotguns being able to instantly target center mass when close to another player.

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With aim assist now addressed, we'll likely see more tweaks for it in the future, but that's one area of The Finals now addressed just as Embark Studios promised. The developer said in its post about today's update that it's got another one planned for next week, too, one that'll resolve major security issues while also dropping some new content.

"We have another bigger update in the works for next week, with a major security fix and some new exciting content, so stay tuned for that!" the developer said.

The Finals' latest update, Patch 1.4.1, should be live now across all platforms.

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