Thank you Turtle Beach for sending us this controller to review!

This has been the craziest year for gaming hardware for me. I got to review controllers that were dreams of mine, like the Flight Deck. I also got to review some of the top modular gamepads on the market, enabling flexibility I didn't realize was out there. After all of that, the madlads at Turtle Beach decided to make the fever dream controller of all time and release the Stealth Pivot, one of the craziest ideas I've ever seen. And the best part is, they mostly succeeded!

In the old days, gamepads had variety between consoles. In the 1990s, the Sega Genesis had three and six face button controllers, while the Super Nintendo (SNES) had four with two bumpers on top. The SNES layout won the longevity game, and most consoles since stuck with or expanded on that, despite Nintendo themselves trying six face buttons with the N64. PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo have all settled on the four-button face layout. And while this it a great benefit for most multi-platform games, there are still some games that really benefit from more. Enter 2D fighters.

While the home console revolution was happening, in the 1990s arcade games were also having a moment of their own. Unshackled by the limitations of home controllers, they would often have any number of combinations of joysticks and buttons. One game stood as one of the most influential arcade titles in history, and arguably the most important 2D fighting game ever, Capcom's Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. When that released, it quickly became the new standard all other fighters sought to meet - and it used a six-button layout.

Since that time, fighting games have had quite the renaissance, especially on PC. Virtually every mainline Street Fighter game is available, and the latest ones have active online communities. Fighters from many developers, like Mortal Kombat and SNK's many fighters, have a home with active communities. While many of those who grew up with fighters prefer using arcade-style fight sticks when playing these games, a good number grew up with home console ports, or simply don't have the space (or budget!) to carry around larger fight sticks. This has led to a small but dedicated resurgence of six-button fight pads. But what if you don't want to buy a special gamepad for a small percentage of the games you play, but still want the flexibility? This is what controllers like the Stealth Pivot are trying to address. That, and it's just cool.

When you open the box, at first it appears that the Stealth Pivot is just like any other controller. It has a button layout like pretty much any Xbox controller, along with a fancy LCD screen for extra functionality and configuration. It has two hall-effect joysticks, a membrane-based D-Pad, and four membrane face buttons. It also has top bumpers and triggers, and trigger stop switch, and two rear buttons. There is also a 3.5mm headset jack on the bottom. Certainly full featured, but not spectacular.

On the back of the controller are two switch sliders. One on the left, and the other on the right. Each has a lock position, as well as a pivot position. On the front of the controller there are two labels: Pivot A on the left, and and Pivot B on the right. Each gray section of the controller is on one pivot. What makes this controller so crazy is you can twist the joystick caps to recess them, then unlock one or both sides from the switch on the rear. Then, you can roll the pivot section and flip it over, exposing the other side with a different set of controls. Both the left and right side has a pivot. It's an absolutely insane design, but it works remarkably well. Only time will tell how durable this is, but it hasn't failed on me yet!

The left side, where the left joystick and D-Pad are, when rotated, hides those and exposes a new dome-based D-Pad that feels clicky to the touch, and two face buttons. If you are playing a D-Pad only game, even if it's a platformer, you will probably prefer this D-Pad, as it's a lot more responsive and the position is better, too. On the right side, there is a right bottom joystick and four face buttons. When rotated out, you get six face buttons in its place. One thing I really appreciate about these buttons is that it uses the 'correct' layout, with ABXY on the bottom, and the new buttons on top. This is much more convenient than some designs, where the additional buttons are on the bottom; that requires a lot more reconfiguration to make good use of.

Between those two pivots and the stock configuration, most picky gamepad users (like me!) will find at least some use cases that they will benefit from. Playing a modern side-scroller that is D-Pad heavy, like 30XX? Flip the left side. Playing a 2D fighter like Street Fighter? Flip both. One other use case that hasn't been covered yet is emulation, and a perfect use for flipping the right side only, leaving you an analog stick and D-Pad on the left, and six face buttons on the right.

Remember that N64 controller I mentioned before? Instead of two analog sticks like modern controllers, there's just one with six face buttons, four of which are aligned in cardinal directions. It just so happens this Stealth Pivot's six-button mode also works for that, too. This is especially true since the controller's on-screen display allows for button remapping and stores on board profiles, making occasional-use remaps very easy. Other controllers, like PDP's also great Victrix Pro BFG can do something similar, but if you want to reconfigure the buttons to optimize for this use case, you'll need to open some Windows software to reconfigure it, or at least save it to an onboard profile ahead of time. This is fine if you have such a computer handy, but less so for one other real benefit: mobile connectivity.

The Stealth Pivot supports three methods of connecting to the destination device. First is wireless, using the included dongle. This only seems to work on Windows PCs; my Linux PC detected it, but I couldn't interact with it in PC mode. Hopefully this works in the future, but as of now it doesn't. One real bummer with PC mode is, while normal rumble works, impulse trigger support does not. Racing games are the most common users of this feature, but I still like having it.

The second mode to connect is the most basic, and that is with a USB-C cable. It behaves just like an Xbox controller in this mode, and impulse trigger rumble is fully supported. It also works on Xbox. Interestingly, I use a driver on Linux called 'xone' that works properly with this controller when connected via a wire.

The last method of connectivity is Bluetooth. This mode works with almost anything, though sadly rumble doesn't work this way. It works perfectly when connected to my Steam Deck via Bluetooth. I also was able to connect it to my Android phone, and it works great there, too. Like I hinted at before, these use cases are where the controller really shines, because that on-screen display allows you to remap buttons very easily without software. If you take N64 games with you on your phone and get sick of touch controls, this Stealth Pivot could be an excellent companion.

While I like many aspects of this controller a whole lot, it's worth pointing out a few flaws. The build quality uses noticeably less premium materials than the Stealth Ultra, though that is a much more expensive controller. There are only two rear buttons rather than four, though that doesn't bother me much. I already mentioned that Xbox can't be used wirelessly, which is a bummer at this price class. I also wish it included some kind of carrying case or at least a soft bag, as I would probably find the cable and especially the USB transmitter easy to lose. I'll probably be velcroing the dongle to the back after this review is done. Some may also prefer mechanical buttons over membrane, but given the space constraints on offer given such a unique controller, I can easily forgive that one. One thing to note is that in my testing the controller has a standard 125Hz polling rate when used wirelessly, and a slightly higher rate of around 180Hz when connected via a wire. Both are lower than the Stealth Ultra's 250Hz, but 180Hz is higher than many, including the PDP Victrix Pro BFG that is much more expensive than this one is.

The Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot is an excellent controller with some flaws, but it does a whole lot right. I wish I could meet the guy who invented this thing; I bet he'd be a lot of fun to hang out with! You don't get this creative by accident. I do wish it was given the full premium treatment with a case and all that, but on the flip side (see what I did there?) you can flip the sticks to all buttons and toss it into a bag, and not worry about the sticks getting damaged this way. It's an ingenious design, and I have not been disappointed in any of Turtle Beach's recent forays into controllers. The Stealth Pivot is no exception. If you find this feature set as intriguing as I do, then I think you'll love it. Recommended!