From Street Fighter 5 and Mortal Kombat 11 to Guilty Gear Strive and Dragon Ball FighterZ, there are many intense fighting games on PS5. While certainly playable with regular controllers, players will attest to the experience of using a genuine fighting controller or stick, and fortunately, new options from HORI are coming to make fighting on PS5 that much better.Most PS5 players have likely been using the DualSense to play their fighting games. While a revolutionary controller in its own right thanks to its ergonomic design and incomparable haptic feedback, it is a controller suited for all sorts of games, rather than one genre in particular. This is where fighting controllers and sticks come in, their design prioritizing player input and responsiveness, with the stick in particular often being considered the best way to play fighting games. There have been purchasable fighting controllers and sticks since the PS5's launch that work with the system, but none that have been officially licensed by PlayStation.PlayStation has revealed two new fighting game accessories for the PS5 that will be coming out in the near future. First is the Fighting Commander OCTA at $59.99, the "ultimate controller for 2D Fighting Games and many other 2D software titles," according to the product's listing on HORI's website. Ditching the DualSense's dual-analog support, the Fighting Commander has a six-button layout on the right grip that brings the R1 and R2 buttons to the controller's face. Additionally, the controller uses micro switches to offer ultra-responsive button inputs, an "industry best" D-pad with customizable sensitivity, a Short Throw Analog Stick, and many other neat features.
The other controller is the "Fighting Stick α" for PS5, a $199.99 pad that is ready for any tournament-level competition. Starting with the inputs, the Fighting Stick α uses HORI's HAYABUSA lever and matte-finished buttons to provide a clean yet tactile fighting pad. For those unsatisfied with the front, the Fighting Stick α can be opened up to either simply replace the artwork underneath the buttons, or more explicitly customize the "arcade quality" components inside to make the fighting stick players want. Both the Fighting Commander OCTA and the Fighting Stick α are also compatible with PS4 and PC.
There is no indication of when these accessories will be officially available, but their announcement must be a reassuring sign for fighting game players on PS5. Guilty Gear Strive launched last year on PS5, PS4, and PC, and despite being one of the best ways to play the game, the PS5's lack of dedicated fighting controller support did not do the game any favors. Guilty Gear's director is unsure of the series' future after Strive, so hopefully once these HORI accessories release, there will be an influx of players on PS5 to help justify the game's continuation.