It’s hard to remember a time when Fortnite players were not arguing over aim assist, but the feud reached all new heights during this weekend’s FNCS Solo event.
Aim assist has existed in Fortnite since the very beginning but it only really became a controversial topic when controller players started to place well in tournaments. In Chapter 2, Season 2, however, we have seen more outrage than ever. The combination of powerful spray weapons, the removal of Legacy Aim Assist and the vaulting of traps has led to a lot of jumping in boxes and taking 50/50 aim duels.
In Week 2 of the FNCS Invitational, we saw “sF Roller” dominate whilst on the sticks. At times, the casters seemed lost for words as he ran from box to box, deleting people with the SMG. Following the event, Roller tweeted out his $25,000 win, with the caption “thank you aim assist”. Social media was then flooded with debate, with everyone making their opinion known. Fortnite commentator and analyst “ShyoWager” couldn’t resist dropping a few not so subtle hints on his thoughts during the live FNCS broadcast.
... @ShyoWager this gif will be legendary... pic.twitter.com/rNuh5vRK79
— Ballatw (@Ballatw) May 17, 2020
In the thick of it all, one of the original controller stars, Aydan “Aydan” Conrad tweeted “Controller is broken LMAO”. When asked for his honest opinion on the topic by Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Aydan provided a well thought out and candid response.
The ex-Ghost Gaming pro explained that he agrees that PC aim assist is too powerful, and thinks that the developers are using it as a cheap way to even the playing field. Rather than this though, Aydan suggests that they provide more customisation options for controller that would closer align it with mouse and keyboard.
Epic Games did recently make some changes to aim assist that were intended to make it function the same on PC as it does on console. This adjustment did not seem to have much of an effect, so it will be interesting to see how they respond to this weekend’s uproar.