Apex Legends Leak Hints at Potential Console Aim Assist Nerf

In all of gaming, there perhaps hasn't been a gameplay balancing debate that's continued to exist so prominently as long as that regarding aim assist in Apex Legends.

Since the game's initial launch in 2019, two points appear to have been established with the Apex community: there is no aim assist on mouse and keyboard, and controller on PC aim assist is not as strong as controller on console aim assist.

According to a recent leak, however, it appears that this dynamic could be receiving a shake-up soon.

As posted on Twitter on June 18 by content creator Thordan Smash, it appears the game's files have been changed so that custom lobbies can have an aim assist override enabled that makes console players use the weaker PC aim assist values.

It is unclear whether or not this is intended to be just a new custom lobby setting or full-on testing to possibly bring the change over to the full game.

Ultimately, a lot of chatter has taken place over the years as to why it's important that console players have a stronger aim assist value than those that use controller on PC.

The main point is that since console players are locked on 60 FPS, as compared to those who are able to play uncapped, forcing them to use the PC aim assist value would be unfair as the effect wouldn't be as strong.

This seemed to be the case in November 2021 when a glitch caused console players to play on the PC aim assist value, to which many complained they just couldn't hit shots.

It is interesting to note that the Next-Gen upgrade for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S did come out this March, but it still lacks the ability to run the game at 120 FPS.

As such, perhaps once those on next-gen consoles are able to play on 120 FPS, and if the custom lobby testing goes right, it seems could see Respawn Entertainment equalize the aim assist values across the board to match the one used on PC.

Back in January, Respawn live balance designer John Larson mentioned in a TwitLonger that the devs are "actively evaluating" aim assist tuning, so it will be interesting to see if this leak turns out to be anything substantial down the line.

Of course, there is also the debate as to whether or not the PC controller aim assist value is too strong itself, at least in the eyes of MnK players, but that's a topic for another day it seems.