ImperialHal, iiTzTimmy, more disappointed over Apex Legends tap strafe changes

Tap strafing has finally been changed in Apex Legends, but pro players and streamers aren’t happy. Big names like Phillip ‘ImperialHal’ Dosen and Timmy ‘iiTzTimmy’ An have voiced concerns about the nerf, saying the movement is “really bad.”

While Apex Legends Season 12 has brought along a number of changes, the alteration of tap strafing is one that’s taking the community by surprise.

Respawn did promise changes were being worked on following their call to remove the mechanic back in Season 10. It’s only been a matter of time since, and now with the fix shipped players are disappointed.

The exact change hasn’t been confirmed by Respawn yet, but players are no longer able to complete a full 180 with a tap strafe while maintaining their momentum. It appears to be only a 90-degree turn now.

Streamers like iiTzTimmy got a first taste of the changes while playtesting the new season live on stream. After being alerted to the changes by a viewer, the avid movement tech user found himself unable to pull off the same 180 degree turns he could on live servers.

“Oh my god, what happened to me? I might as well Alt+F4 right now. They actually took out tap strafing. That’s crazy, who would have thought,” he said.

He digested the changes a few minutes later, taking some time to speak on stream about how it’ll change the movement meta.

“Going from being able to tap strafe and flying like a god damn gazelle, and now you have to unbind tap strafing,” Timmy stated. “Even if you do tap strafe, it doesn’t change anything.

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“You’re going to have to go back to the whole meta of redirecting, which is fine, but it’s unfamiliar because why redirect if you could tap strafe? You’ll see a lot of people make a lot of movement mistakes because they’re not used to it.”

Criticism over the changes were echoed by Apex Legends pros. TSM leader ImperialHal hasn’t tested the change personally, but after watching playtests said “it looks really bad.”

“I don’t know if that’ll be good for the game. I think it’ll be really weird. You can do it at a 90-degree angle, but it’s basically non-existent now. From 180 to 90, it’s like a baby tap strafe,” he said on stream.

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Others, like NRG’s Nathan ‘nafen’ Nguyen took more drastic measures, uninstalling the game live on stream. While that was just a joke ⁠— he reinstalled and played games later in the day ⁠— for others it’ll be less so.

Respawn are yet to speak out about the tap strafe changes in Apex Legends Season 12. We will update you with specifics when the update launches on February 8.