One of the biggest points of debate and argument in the Marathon community lately has been the controversial “Mouse Magnetism” feature, which effectively adds a form of aim assist to mouse and keyboard players. This unusual design choice sparked widespread backlash and Bungie has heard the feedback loud and clear. The developers confirmed today that they will be disabling Mouse Magnetism during the next patch for the closed alpha. Here is the official tweet confirming the announcement:
The official statement from Bungie said that the team “will be patching the Marathon Closed Alpha next week with several fixes and updates, including disabling mouse magnetism.” While players previously had the option to manually turn Mouse Magnetism off, this upcoming patch will turn it off by default across the board for all mouse and keyboard users.
Aim assist is a standard feature for players using controllers in first-person shooters, helping compensate for the inherent disadvantages of analog stick aiming. However, seeing an assist mechanism applied to mouse and keyboard users is extremely rare — and in Marathon’s case, many found it disruptive to the expected precision of PC gameplay. The degree to which Mouse Magnetism affected gameplay became a major talking point throughout the closed alpha, especially on forums like Reddit and X.
Several high-profile streamers and professional players weighed in against the setting. Popular streamer Shroud expressed his disapproval during a recent broadcast: “They just need to throw that out. I get that they’re trying to balance between consoles and PC for crossplay," he said. "But it’s only going to ruin the PC part of the game. You’re just watering it down and making mouse and keyboard players feel like shit. PC players would rather just improve their mechanics than have an assist.” Here is the full clip down below for context:
The Marathon development team originally implemented Mouse Magnetism as an experimental feature. Earlier during the closed alpha, gameplay director Andrew Witts explained that the team added it to "try it out as a lever to keep parity between mouse and keyboard and controller." The idea was to bridge the gameplay gap for crossplay matchmaking, where players from different control schemes would be competing against each other.
However, the overwhelming negative feedback from the community made it clear that Mouse Magnetism was not well-received by the core audience. Disabling it during the alpha gives Bungie a perfect opportunity to test how gameplay feels without it and adjust their balance plans accordingly before the game’s eventual public release.
For now, it appears Bungie is committed to listening to player feedback as Marathon continues its development. How the removal of Mouse Magnetism affects competitive play during the next alpha test remains to be seen.
What are your thoughts on the mouse aim assist? Were you a fan of it or no? Let us know your thoughts on the Marathon closed alpha down below!
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