Apex Legends devs nerfing controller movement in major balance shift

Apex Legends’ devs are set to nerf controllers’ movement and configs to ‘protect’ the game’s competitive integrity. 

The debate of controller vs mouse and keyboard has long been raging on in gaming, especially in Apex as controllers have taken over the game with a plethora of top pros like ImperialHal and Albralelie making the switch. 

And as the controller players dominate Ranked, with the amount of mouse and keyboard players at the top lagging behind, Respawn has announced nerfs to controllers. 

Heads up, legends. We've been rolling out some changes to @PlayApex to better protect the game's competitive integrity.

We are making changes to remove automated strafing on controller and will also be making changes to prevent the chaining of cfg files via the +exec command…

— Respawn (@Respawn) February 1, 2024

“Heads up, Legends. We’ve been rolling out some changers to [Apex Legends] to better protect the game’s competitive integrity,” Respawn announced in a tweet. 

Apex Legends devs to roll out major nerfs to controllers

“We are making changes to remove automated strafing on controller and will also be making changes to prevent the chaining of cfg files via the +exec command during game time.” 

To put it simply, the devs are disabling certain configs on controllers that would normally allow a greater range of movement that is normally possible in the game. 

So configs for movements like Neo-strafing and supergliding is now disabled. They also made clear and warned that the use of third-party tools, hardware, firmware, or software, is absolutely not allowed and still considered cheating. 

This reminder comes as software like reWASD made a splash in games like CoD and The Finals, with the Cronus Zen being banned from the PS5 after a recent firmware update. 

“As such, we will continue to evaluate potential exploits and take further action as needed,” the devs ended the announcement. 

For now, it seems the devs will be nerfing controller movement, however, is not touching controller’s aim assist as of yet. But the massive nerf is now being celebrated by the community at large.

“The amount of people who don’t realize MnK doesn’t need configs to do movement is astounding. We’re doing it with human input, you abuse a macro. We are not the same,” TSM’s Albralelie said of the nerfs.