Call of Duty: Vanguard aim assist bug finally fixed after months of work

News
By
published

An aim assist fix is coming to Warzone soon, too

Call of Duty: Vanguard
(Image credit: Activision)

A troublesome Call of Duty: Vanguard aim assist bug has finally been squashed after months of testing and investigation, and a fix for the issue will come to Warzone soon as well.

Vanguard developer Sledgehammer Games outlined the triage process for this particular bug in a recent Twitter thread. The problem sounds straightforward on paper: sometimes, the game's aim assist system would get ahead of itself and skip a "player visibility check," potentially causing aim assist to flicker in and out multiple times in a firefight. 

This bug was likely especially bothersome since it could make guns feel subtly inconsistent. It's arguably better to have no aim assist at all so that you can at least get a feel for how a weapon performs, sort of like how a steady frame rate of 30 often looks better than a slightly higher frame rate that jumps around. 

However, fixing this simple-sounding problem was quite the ordeal. Sledgehammer says it began monitoring reports of aim assist issues back when Season One began in December 2021, and it's only just pushed a fix for this specific issue today. 

"Thank you to everyone who shared clips of this issue," Sledgehammer said. "This bug was very difficult to reproduce and the video clips were critical to the QA investigation which helped our engineering team diagnose and solve the issue."

Now that the bug's been addressed in Vanguard, Sledgehammer says a comparable fix will come to Warzone soon enough, passing the ball to Raven Software to handle the battle royale side of things. 

Sledgehammer was quick to note that "the real test is the live game environment with all of you," so proceed optimistically but cautiously as you watch for lingering aim assist hitches. 

A mid-season update is bringing some refreshed content and a Snoop Dogg skin to Warzone and Vanguard.  

See more PC Gaming News
Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with 12DOVE since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

Read more
Two Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players using omnimovement to dive past each other on the Skyline map
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Season 2 brings back a beloved game mode fans have been begging for, but all I care about is a practically meaningless bug fix
Black Ops 6
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 makes headshots deadlier while cutting back on weapon sway and recoil: "We will be keeping a close eye on sniper balance after this change"
Marvel Rivals Psylocke
Good news - Marvel Rivals is finally fixing its pesky mouse acceleration problem in next month's Season 1
Marvel Rivals
Marvel Rivals gets its first post-launch patch, taking aim at bugs that were making players get stuck in various places and an overpowered Doctor Strange strategy
Monster Hunter Wilds
New Monster Hunter Wilds patch fixes a bunch of progress-blocking bugs, but there's still a network error bug playing havoc with SOS signals
Helldivers 2 Escalation of Freedom
Helldivers 2's funniest feature was removed last year, but it's finally been reinstated – although it won't save you from certain doom anymore
Latest in Call of Duty
A player wearing a gasmask and holding a gun during the shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Call of Duty season 2 brings back Gun Game and a fan-favorite Zombies weapon we haven't seen in 10 years
A player wearing a gasmask and holding a gun during the shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
136,000 Call of Duty accounts have gotten banned since ranked launched for Black Ops 6: "We’re not slowing down in our mission to shut down cheaters"
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War reportedly surpasses Red Dead Redemption 2's huge development costs, with a massive $700 million budget
Black Ops 6
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 makes headshots deadlier while cutting back on weapon sway and recoil: "We will be keeping a close eye on sniper balance after this change"
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 movement.
Black Ops 6 player spent nearly 20 hours grinding to Prestige without getting a single kill, all by spamming Spy Cams
Black Ops 6 Zombies
Call of Duty hacker says "I had my fun" after reportedly getting thousands of Warzone and Modern Warfare 3 players falsely banned
Latest in News
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
Daredevil recap: The Defenders
Marvel fans are discussing which of the Netflix series characters would have survived the Blip
More about call of duty
A player wearing a gasmask and holding a gun during the shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

Call of Duty season 2 brings back Gun Game and a fan-favorite Zombies weapon we haven't seen in 10 years
A player wearing a gasmask and holding a gun during the shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

136,000 Call of Duty accounts have gotten banned since ranked launched for Black Ops 6: "We’re not slowing down in our mission to shut down cheaters"
Balatro

Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
See more latest
Most Popular
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
Daredevil recap: The Defenders
Marvel fans are discussing which of the Netflix series characters would have survived the Blip
A misty, forested mountainside in Prologue: Go Wayback!
PUBG creator's wilderness survival game actually draws inspiration from an unexpected place - a whole raft of zombie games like DayZ, Project Zomboid, and Left 4 Dead
The Blood of Dawnwalker: A screenshot of the vampire Brencis holding up a crown during the trailer for the upcoming game.
The Witcher 3 devs created a Jekyll & Hyde-style character for their new vampire RPG "because nobody yet has done that"
Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock in Daredevil: Born Again
Daredevil fans are wondering if Born Again season 2 will set up a darker comic book arc for Matt Murdock
Theo James as Hal in Osgood Perkins' The Monkey
It might only be March, but Stephen King adaptation The Monkey is now the highest grossing horror movie of 2025