With large controls and layouts resembling stand-up arcade cabinets of yesteryear, arcade fight sticks make it easier to chain attacks, perform combos, and pull off tricky moves. In fact, some people believe they’re the best option for competitive fighting games. Not everyone’s convinced, of course, which is why the scene continues to evolve new designs, including leverless controllers that ditch the joystick in favor of an all-button layout. The 8BitDo Arcade Controller is the outfit’s take on the leverless design.
To the unfamiliar, leverless controllers were pioneered by Hit Box several years ago and have grown to become extremely popular in the fighting game community since. The idea is that buttons enable higher precision and more rapid input compared to joysticks, giving competitive players a serious edge in fighting games, albeit at the expense of a higher learning curve.
The 8BitDo Arcade Controller is, basically, a large gamepad that’s around the same size as an arcade fight stick. It uses the same full-size buttons, too, so you can smash your way into any combat with the same fervor as kids used to do back when they played on arcade machines. In this design, though, they trade in the joystick for four large buttons arranged in such a way that you can keep one finger on each of them at all times. Yes, it does seem counterintuitive moving your character using buttons instead of a joystick, but going this route allows for faster movement input, since it takes less time to press a button than to move a joystick. And for those looking to gain every bit of competitive edge, that absolutely matters.
Aside from the new direction buttons, the controller also comes with eight large action buttons that’s, pretty standard, for fighting controllers. They also threw in four programmable buttons shaped like beans, which, the outfit claims, makes it easier to distinguish them from the rest of the controls. In case you don’t have a use for the programmable buttons, you can replace them with included lock caps to avoid accidental presses.
The 8BitDo Arcade Controller uses Kailh Wizard low-profile mechanical switches for all 16 buttons in the device, along with a hot-swappable PCB, so you can customize with other switches if you want. A switch on top lets you set whether you’re using it on a Switch or a PC, with the labels automatically switching to display the correct layout for each machine, with the ability to connect wirelessly over Bluetooth for Switch and a 2.4GHz dongle for Windows. You can also connect to either device over USB-C. The onboard battery lets it run for up to 20 hours of gameplay in wireless mode with the lighting turned on, which can extend to 40 hours if you turn it off instead.
This is designed for competitive players, by the way, so it has a built-in SOCD cleaner to eliminate contradictory directional inputs, as well as a tournament lock, ensuring you can use it for official competitive matches. Other features include a magnetic adapter compartment for the dongle, non-slip silicone mat on the backside, a slim profile of 1.6cm at the thinnest point, magnetic foldable feet, and a smudge-resistant tempered glass faceplate. It’s compatible with the outfit’s Ultimate Software V2.
The 8BitDo Arcade Controller is available now.
