What exists, what does not, and what the button actually does
The complete inventory, in the same shape as the FOV answer, because the two questions fail the same way: the setting people assume is universal simply is not there, and something adjacent gets mistaken for it.
| Thing | State | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| A lock-on toggle or key | × | Not in the options, not in the keybinds, on any platform. Every attack goes where the crosshair points. |
| The soulslike lock-on button | ? | It does something — it drops a waypoint marker. The June playtest asker called it a "useless waypoint", which is the fastest description of the discovery everyone makes. |
| An official statement | × | No patch note, DevNote or reply addresses lock-on in either direction, through the current update. |
| Camera control as the substitute | ✓ | The camera is the targeting system. Circling a monster and holding an angle on a moving player are doing the job a lock-on would do. |
| The settings that help | ✓ | The same ones as the FOV page: smooth camera off, post-processing down. They make the view you steer go where you point it. |
A lock-on toggle or key
- State
- ×
- What to know
- Not in the options, not in the keybinds, on any platform. Every attack goes where the crosshair points.
The soulslike lock-on button
- State
- ?
- What to know
- It does something — it drops a waypoint marker. The June playtest asker called it a "useless waypoint", which is the fastest description of the discovery everyone makes.
An official statement
- State
- ×
- What to know
- No patch note, DevNote or reply addresses lock-on in either direction, through the current update.
Camera control as the substitute
- State
- ✓
- What to know
- The camera is the targeting system. Circling a monster and holding an angle on a moving player are doing the job a lock-on would do.
The settings that help
- State
- ✓
- What to know
- The same ones as the FOV page: smooth camera off, post-processing down. They make the view you steer go where you point it.
The stealth argument, which is the community’s best one
Nobody official has explained the omission, but the explanation players keep landing on is mechanical rather than aesthetic: this game has a stealth assassin class and a castable invisibility, and lock-on systems interact catastrophically with both. A lock that holds through Stealth reveals the Shadowstrix; a lock that breaks on Stealth becomes a free detection tool against the Sorcerer’s Shadow Veil. Either way the mechanic stops working the moment targeting automates. That reasoning appeared in the playtest thread and has never needed updating.
- The other half of the argument is PvP aim: ranged classes that never have to track a target stop paying the cost the melee classes pay.
- It is still an inference. If Bellring ever states a reason, that statement replaces this section.
If you came from soulslikes
The genre reflex this game punishes is fighting through the lock. The players who adjusted describe the same change: treat the camera as an aimed weapon, keep groups in frame rather than centering one enemy, and accept that landing hits is a tracking skill here, not a targeting state. Controller players have it harder — the launch-day thread splits exactly along input lines, mouse players dismissing the request and controller players explaining why they want it.