New Fortnite discovery shows potential advantage for controller players

We’ve talked about the raging debate between mice and controllers in Fortnite before, but conversations often devolve into shouting matches. Hard evidence and video documentation serve as better methods for parsing this issue.

An unfortunately high number of Fortnite players have taken “sides” in this controller vs. mouse debate. It’s not about sides, but rather about achieving a better understanding of gameplay skill.

Recently, FortniteCompetitive members decided to conduct an experiment on controllers and the results are interesting, but not definitive. Let’s discuss what was found in these tests.

Controllers may have less Fortnite recoil than mice

Ok, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Controllers do have aim assist which helps them stay on target. The purpose of this is to close the gap between a mouse’s accuracy and the thumbstick’s inaccurate nature. Most professionals choose to play with a mouse due to greater potential for precision.

Now, onto the latest in this drama. Aim assist has had problems in the past which have been mostly addressed. Some ‘L2 Spam’ can still occur, but the benefits have been minimized. Recent Reddit research has uncovered another possible advantage for controllers.

u/Elijahyeur posted a lengthy showcase of controllers receiving less recoil as opposed to controllers.

Controller has less recoil than a Mouse, even without aim assist from r/FortniteCompetitive

We cannot stress enough how important it is to be skeptical when reviewing such content. The poster could have easily faked the video by controlling for recoil with a controller and not doing so with a mouse. We couldn’t be sure of the validity of the video without preforming our own tests.

The above video does show sizable differences in recoil patterns. The mouse has about 40% more recoil over its controller counterpart. All tests were preformed using the Grey Assault Rifle and no other weapon. Without testing each weapon (or at least a large subset), these tests are not conclusive.

FortniteINTEL Controller vs. Mouse Recoil Test

So, to validate the experiment, we hopped into PC Fortnite ourselves and plugged in a Xbox One Elite Controller.

In order to truly confirm these suspicions, we set up the same experiment as in the Reddit video. You can test this yourself by heading into Creative mode, lining up about 8-10 windowed walls, spawning a Grey AR, and getting to work.

We’ll admit that…