For the last month, I’ve been playing around with Hyperkin‘s new Competitor controller. This wired gamepad is an officially licensed Xbox controller that is designed to look and feel like a PlayStation 5 controller. And it’s a great controller, but holy crap does it break my brain when I use it.
Out now, Hyperkin’s new Competitor controller costs $50 and is a damn fine gamepad. It features super-smooth and responsive Hall Effect joysticks, so stick drift shouldn’t be a problem anytime soon, and it has Xbox-like Impulse Triggers that rumble as you’d expect. This wired controller is incredibly well built and feels great to use. Heck, it feels really good just to hold. It’s the kind of gamepad that makes you want to play something when you pick it up. Buttons are responsive, too, though I’m not a huge fan of the menu and view buttons. They’re too slim in profile and can be easy to miss when first using the controller and blindly sliding your thumbs around.
The Competitor sports some extras that a standard Xbox gamepad lacks, like two back buttons located on the rear of the gamepad’s long, textured grips. These can be programmed in supporting games, letting you assign reload or jump or other actions to these extra inputs. The back buttons can also be locked so you don’t accidentally use them, a feature I appreciate as I don’t normally engage with back paddles.
The big difference between this and most other Xbox controllers is that it’s built to feel like a PS5 DualSense. The sticks are symmetrical, the d-pad feels ripped right off a Dualsense, and even the shape is a close-to-perfect match for Sony’s controller. If you’re someone who is more comfortable using a PlayStation controller, but you also own an Xbox Series X/S, the Competitor is designed specifically for you.
Plays great, feels weird
Overall, this is a fantastic controller that worked perfectly on my PC as well as my Xbox Series X. But actually using this controller to play games broke my brain. I didn’t realize until I started playing around with the Competitor how hardwired my brain is when it comes to controllers.
Holding this thing, my brain wants to treat it like a PlayStation controller, yet the Xbox button prompts don’t match up with what my brain thinks I’m holding. I’d go to press the DualSense’s touchpad to open a menu and find nothing but barren plastic. It was like rubbing my stomach while tapping my head with a different hand. I could use the Competitor, but only if I thought about it, and even then, I’d make mistakes.
I imagine for folks who prefer PlayStation controllers, this won’t be a problem. They’ll plug this into their Xbox and never look back. But as someone who hops between Xbox and PlayStation a lot, this controller really screwed with me. That’s not the controller’s fault. That’s my brain being weird. For most people, this won’t be a problem. And for $50, the Competitor is a solid, well-made Xbox or PC controller that will likely last you years if you take care of it.
