Pre-Aim Guide

Pre-Aiming is one of the most essential and simple concepts in a first-person shooter game. As the name implies, pre-aim is the preemptive aim that comes before the aim. In other words, pre-aim is the culmination of adjustments made to the crosshair before reacting to an enemy in view. This preparation is done to minimize the amount of crosshair movement that is necessary to shoot an enemy. Knowing someone is going to appear in a window in front of you, would you rather have your crosshair aimed below the window or in the window? Of course, you would want to aim inside the window to be able to shoot them faster.

As indicated by the pictures below, having your crosshair placed under the window would require upwards movement to reach the target when they appear inside the window. This is an example of bad pre-aim / crosshair placement.

Having your crosshair placed inside the window prepares you for the enemy that may come into view. The picture below is an example of good pre-aim / crosshair placement.

The majority of FPS games reward shooting an opponent’s head to deal extra damage. With this in mind, it’s important to place your crosshair at the same level as your opponent’s head when pre-aiming. A good way to think about how to do this is to imagine your screen as a grid with an X and Y-axis. Given that your opponent is at the same elevation as you, their head will always be at the same point on the Y-axis as shown by the red x-axis line in the picture below.

To effectively prepare to headshot an enemy, the crosshair should remain fixed to the headshot level at almost all times. The crosshair should have minimal movement along the Y-axis and should mostly move along the X-axis. The movement along the X-axis is necessary to get positions or targets onto your crosshair. The minimal movement along the Y-axis can occur for a multitude of reasons and three main reasons will be discussed here.

The first reason occurs when you are controlling the recoil of your weapon. Firing in big bursts or large sprays causes your crosshair to rise. To keep the crosshair on target, a downward movement along the y-axis is necessary. 

( insert recoil control gif)

The second is when you know an opponent’s health is low. If your opponent has low enough hp to perish from a single shot to the chest, then it is better to switch your crosshair placement from headshot level to chest level. The chest of your opponent will provide the largest center of mass for you to aim at, thus providing an advantage in this situation.

(insert low hp crosshair picture)-

The third is when you’re dealing with inconsistent terrain and/or elevation differences between yourself and where you are aiming. In the picture below, X-axis 2 becomes the new headshot level when expecting an enemy on the ledge in front of you. You should imagine the headshot level raised or lowered by the amount of elevation difference that is visible. 

Generally speaking, the crosshair should be placed very close to the edge that you are predicting an enemy to appear behind. This is because you want to reduce the amount of X-axis movement that would be needed to shoot a target when they appear. 

However, certain variables may change how exactly much of a gap you want to put between your crosshair and the edge that you are pre-aiming. As seen in the GIF below, one influence can be the distance between yourself and the edge that you are pre-aiming, with an increase in distance equating to a decrease in the gap between your crosshair and the edge. This is because the closer you are to an edge or object, the quicker a peeking enemy takes up space on your screen, thus requiring more of a gap to account for this.

As previously noted, there is an amount of X-axis movement that is necessary when peeking around edges to get a target into view. This movement will displace your crosshair’s pre-aim and will require you to trace the edge as you are peeking to maintain proper crosshair placement as shown in the GIF below.

There are occasions where you can choose to not trace the edge that you are peeking around and instead place your crosshair so that it lines up perfectly with a position as you peek which is shown in the GIF below. This can be beneficial over tracing because your crosshair is completely still and prepared to take out a target if they happen to be in that position. 

This method can be risky because if an enemy is not in the position that you are predicting when you peek then you are now unprepared and required to reposition your crosshair as a result. An example can be seen in the GIF below. 

Players practicing pre-aim may find themselves having to consciously reposition their crosshair, however, the more that you play with these tips in mind, the more automatic your abilities will become. That is why it is extremely important to always practice good pre-aim and to never let your guard down. Maintaining a consistent pre-aim gives you an edge over your opponents in almost every encounter. This is especially so in the presence of smoke grenades, abilities, and other visible geometry that you can shoot through. Such aspects in FPS games simply hinder your sight, not your bullets. With this in mind, maintaining good pre-aim while there is a smoke ability/grenade on-screen increases your odds of predicting and eliminating the enemy as seen in the pictures below.

Note that these tips have been displayed alongside FPS games where hip firing with a crosshair is the main method of shooting. You may find yourself aiming down sights with your weapon without a crosshair in other FPS games and these tips generally still apply. For guides similar to this one, make sure to check out our theory category of guides!