Summary
Bungie has announced that it will be disabling a feature that manyMarathonplayers took issue with in the live-service game’s inaugural closed alpha playtest. Following widespread negative feedback from players,Marathon’ssurprising use of aim assist for mouse and keyboard players will be turned off in the closed alpha with the issuance of its next update.
First announced nearly two years ago,Marathonis a revival of one of Bungie’s oldest franchises. The modernMarathontakes the form of a live-service extraction shooter, standing in stark contrast to its story-driven first-person shooter forefathers, yet still basing itself in the same universe and carrying the lore forward. Bungie recently showed off gameplay for itsMarathonrevival, which garnered praise and concern in near-equal parts. To help placate the latter, a closed alpha forMarathonis currently being held.
Marathon’s closed alpha playtestsbegan on April 23 and will run until May 4, and Bungie even removed the NDA initially surrounding it, allowing players to publicly share feedback about the game. To that end, one of the biggest sources of early criticism ofMarathon’s closed alpha was the inclusion of “Mouse Magnetism,” an aim assist-like feature enabled by default for mouse and keyboard users on PC.Marathonplayers noticed that Mouse Magnetism didn’t just slow down crosshair movement like traditional friction aim assist, it also actively pulled the aim toward targets during strafing, even without direct input.
Bungie Nerfing Contentious Aim Assist Feature in Upcoming Marathon Closed Alpha Patch
Popular streamer Shroud also voiced frustration withtheMarathonfeature, stating that such systems “water down” the PC experience and suggesting that players would prefer honing their aiming skills organically instead of relying on artificial assistance.Marathongameplay director Andrew Witts explainedthat the aim assist was an experiment to create parity between PC and console players, but after strong community feedback, Bungie has confirmed that it willdisable Mouse Magnetism in the closed alpha via a patch that will arrive next week.Marathonplayers previously had the option to manually turn Mouse Magnetism off, but now it will be off by default across the board.
On consoles, controller aim assist is fairly standard (and often necessary) for fair competition against mouse and keyboard users in shooter games. However, applying similar assistance to PC players is seen by many as undermining the skill-based expectations of the platform. Thankfully, Bungie’s swift response shows that the studio istaking the feedback toMarathon’sclosed alpha tests very seriously.
