On this page, I'll never do fluff. My goal is sincerely and swiftly wrap up all my ideas to reflect my thoughts. If the content feels bland, that's why. I'm always here if you want an in-depth conversation :)
Everyone has something they're fanatical about in life—some people have a favorite football team, brand, TV series, movie, or celebrity; mine is a game. It's called Call of Duty. When it first came out, as a kid I thought it was way ahead of its time, and that positive impression has stuck with me ever since.
With the development of the internet and server infrastructure, multiplayer became the core gameplay element, and single-player campaigns started to feel like little extras alongside the true online experience.
Back then, each platform played within its own ecosystem—PC vs. PC or console vs. console—which kept competition fair and lively. I remember the common refrain, "There's too much cheating on PC; consoles are cleaner." It was somewhat true, but if anti-cheat software had worked properly and lobbies had been well monitored, those perceptions could have been avoided.
Anyway, crossplay has recently arrived, and now the game's entire daily active user base meets in the same lobbies. While input and platform differences don’t create unfair advantages in some genres, shooter games are among the most affected. Game companies may have data-driven justifications for this, but I’m not here to make an objective analysis—I’m here to share my own experience, which has been going downhill.
I believe shooter games are natively mouse-and-keyboard experiences. Feel free to disagree. PCs have always been more expensive than consoles worldwide, and consoles are more affordable and user-friendly—you just plug one cable into your living-room TV without any special setup. That naturally led to a massive console player-base. Publishers and developers, rightly so, couldn’t ignore such a large audience, and they started to build solutions to keep that group happy—chief among them, aim assist.
Aim assist is, of course, a great idea to keep those players active and satisfied, but as with anything, too much of a good thing can be harmful. Right now, aim assist provides far more help than a casual player actually needs, and it destroys the game’s fairness. It’s entirely plausible that a four-year-old could learn to use aim assist well enough to wreak havoc in a lobby.
I think the fact that aim assist is so overpowered right now is the publisher’s blunt way of choosing sides among players and showing who matters more. Controller players, you’re our darlings; mouse-and-keyboard players, you can piss off—the game isn’t made for you anymore.
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