Marathon Making Big Change in Next Closed Alpha Update

Summary

The controversial Mouse Magnetism feature in Marathon’s closed alpha will be disabled in an upcoming patch.
Mouse Magnetism acts as an aim assist-like feature for mouse and keyboard users, and its inclusion in Marathon’s closed alpha has bred significant criticism.
Players can toggle Mouse Magnetism off, but once the next Marathon closed alpha patch rolls around, the feature will be disabled by default.

Bungie has announced that it will be disabling a feature that many Marathon players took issue with in the live-service game’s inaugural closed alpha playtest. Following widespread negative feedback from players, Marathon‘s surprising 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, Marathon is a revival of one of Bungie’s oldest franchises. The modern Marathon takes 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 its Marathon revival, which garnered praise and concern in near-equal parts. To help placate the latter, a closed alpha for Marathon is currently being held.

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Marathon‘s closed alpha playtests began 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 of Marathon‘s closed alpha was the inclusion of “Mouse Magnetism,” an aim assist-like feature enabled by default for mouse and keyboard users on PC. Marathon players 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 with the Marathon feature, 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. Marathon gameplay director Andrew Witts explained that the aim assist was an experiment to create parity between PC and console players, but after strong community feedback, Bungie has confirmed that it will disable Mouse Magnetism in the closed alpha via a patch that will arrive next week. Marathon players 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 is taking the feedback to Marathon‘s closed alpha tests very seriously.