Respawn Entertainment, the developers behind the popular battle royale game Apex Legends is adamant about removing tap strafing from the game.
Apex Legends was Respawn’s first foray into the highly competitive battle royale genre of video games. Following its initial release back in 2019, it amassed a massive dedicated player base. Aside from the quality of life updates, Respawn brought world-class first-person shooter gameplay and movement mechanics to this genre.
Respawn used the old source engine to build this game and as such it probably has one of the most intuitive movements of any first-person shooter that is out there right now apart from Titanfall which is also set in the same universe.
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As this game was built on top of the source engine, savvy players figured out advanced movement mechanics to get an edge over their opponents. For example, wall jumping, super gliding, tap-strafing, etc are all the results of continuous experimentation from the dedicated Apex Legends player base.
However, among them, tap strafing, a movement tech that allows players to make quick 180-degree movement in all directions has been a hotly debated topic within the Apex Legends community.
While many PC players feel it levels the playing field against controller players with aim assist, a lot of controller players feel this movement tech is unfair as it is really unpredictable. Even the devs at Respawn decided that this movement tech needs to be removed from the game for the sake of balance.
Consequently, Respawn already developed a build of the game without tap strafing in it. And they invited professional Apex Legends players to test it out if the removal of tap-strafing had any unwanted penalties to another movement tech.
Turns out, Respawn’s first try at removing tap-strafing from the game affected other parts of movements in Apex Legends. As such, the devs released a statement claiming they are going back to the drawing board.
Respawn still intends on removing tap strafing
C9 PVPX, a professional Apex Legends player asked Respawn to add tap-strafing support on the controller to make both inputs a bit more balanced.
In response, John Larson who is the Live Balance Designer at Respawn explained that Respawn hasn’t forgotten about tap-strafing. And they are still pretty much against this advanced movement tech that lacks readability and counterplay.
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So, Respawn is still in the process of removing tap-strafing from the game altogether. Although they haven’t revealed any official timeline as to when this change might occur.
