Apex Legends dev confirms they're "not removing" tap strafing but changes still planned

July 09, 2022

The tap-strafing movement mechanic has become a highly controversial topic in the Apex Legends community. Even though Respawn initially announced its removal in an upcoming patch, a dev has since confirmed that it would be “tuned” instead.

When it was announced that tap-strafing would be removed due to it being a “design problem”, many players were up in arms. This resulted in Respawn further delaying the scheduled patch.

However, in an interview with John Larson, the game‘s Live Balance Designer, the developer said that tap-strafing will not be removed in Apex Legends, simply tuned.

Respawn is “not removing” tap-strafing

While many players believed that the ability to tap-strafe would eventually be removed, the dev team has moved to reassured players that Respawn isn’t removing the mechanic and that there will “still be capabilities that you could do with tap-strafing”.

Larson went further, stating that before any major tap-strafing changes can be made in Apex Legends, Respawn will require more feedback from skilled players and pros, as well as more data from internal playtesting sessions.

“With something as sensitive as movement,” Larson stated, “we want to make sure we get it right. I’m personally not in a rush to get it out…and as someone who plays on controller…I really rely on input from all the devs that are into movement and other pro players”.

The related segment begins at 9:10 in the video below.

Larson ended by encouraging players to refer to his blog post which goes into in-depth detail on the reasoning behind the need for a tap-strafing change in Apex Legends.

He stated: “I can’t provide a specific date (for the tap-strafing changes) but it’s something we feel comfortable with tuning for the reasons I’ve detailed in the blog post, which is something I encourage anyone to revisit”.

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