It’s a years-long debate at this point, but it’s one that shows no signs of slowing down. I am of course talking about the feud between mouse and keyboard and controller players in FPS games. Aim assist is usually a big talking point within this fiery debate, and Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is stoking up the embers. In order to “get everyone on a level playing field,” the new CoD game has made a sweeping change to controller aim assist.
Within minutes of the Black Ops 6 beta going live, controller players immediately noticed something felt different to previous iterations of the FPS game series. As has now been confirmed by one of Treyarch’s top devs, that thing was aim assist. Black Ops 6 has massively overhauled aim assist and has, essentially, nerfed its effectiveness by stripping away the customization options associated with it. Particularly at close ranges, players are noticing a massive reduction in the amount of aim assist they are receiving.
In response to a clip from Call of Duty YouTuber ‘JGOD’ showcasing a nerf to close-range aim assist in the BO6 beta, Treyarch’s associate design director Matt Scronce says: “Tweaks have been made. Aim Assist Type removed so we can get everyone on a level playing field. We’ll share details soon.”
Diving into the beta’s settings, you will see that there is now just an ‘on’ or ‘off’ toggle for controller aim assist. In previous iterations of CoD, including the current game, Modern Warfare 3, players had access to several different variations of aim assist that all had different strengths and feels. Now, in Black Ops 6, that customization has been stripped away.
Given that the aim assist nerf is most impactful at close range, my theory is that this is almost certainly a decision made as a result of the new Omnimovement system. Black Ops 6 now lets you slide, dive, sprint, and strafe in any direction – while we’re yet to see how it fully shakes out, my hunch is that this will be one of the most dynamic and movement-oriented CoDs since the ‘jetpack era’ of the mid 2010s. We’ll have to wait for those “details” Scronce mentions to arrive to know for sure, but it seems like the most logical reason.
So, if you’re jumping into the Black Ops 6 beta as either a controller player on PC or console, be prepared for your aim to feel rather different. Call of Duty isn’t the only popular multiplayer game making big aim assist changes either – recently, Apex Legends nerfed controller aim assist too after admitting it had been “too strong” for a long time in the battle royale game.
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