The old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ is generally a sensible one to live by, but while it used to hold so very true for gaming peripherals, there’s a bunch of brands that are challenging the status quo. It used to be that cheap non-official controllers were reserved for younger siblings in the 90s and 00s, before the rise of pro controllers saw £200 pieces of kit roundly surpass something a quarter of its price. Times have changed, though, and GameSir are proving that saying wrong, as the Cyclone 2 is one of the best gaming controllers we’ve ever seen, and it costs just £50.
The Cyclone 2 is a wireless multiplatform controller, usable with PC and Nintendo Switch via its 2.4GHz USB-A dongle, as well as iOS, Android and Smart TVs via Bluetooth. In the box you get the controller, a metre-long cable and, for an extra £5, a nifty metal charging dock that magnetically hangs onto the Cyclone 2 when it’s not in use. The dock itself also has a USB socket for the dongle, so you only need one USB port to get it all hooked up. It’s smart, sturdy, and makes living with the Cyclone 2 a very easy sell.
Available in black or white, our review unit came in white, with gold detailing and bold red highlights around each analogue stick. Rather than being a solid colour, it fades from the top to translucency at the bottom. That’s handy because the Cyclone 2 boasts some of those fancy RGB lights inside so that it glows in a spectrum of colours. There’s a limited amount of customisation available via the controller itself, which is a shame, but you can dive deeper into the different light effects in the GameSir Connect software. Overall, the Cyclone 2 is an eye-catching controller, and it looks stylish and modern.
Based on the layout and form of the Xbox Series X|S controller, the Cyclone 2 feels immediately comfortable in your hand. There’s textured plastic here to help give you a bit more grip, but where this would typically be only on the underside of each arm, as on the Xbox controller, I really like that it actually goes all the way round to the top side of the controller as well.
The main face buttons and the D-pad all use microswitches, and they feel fantastic. At this pricepoint, the level of build quality is frankly ridiculous, and it makes the official Xbox controller it’s modelled on feel positively stone-age in comparison. The shoulder buttons are responsive despite missing out on the microswitches, and they have a full range of use, even at the far corner away from the button mechanism itself.
Here’s where things get really interesting though. Firstly, the analogue sticks feel amazing. These are Hall Effect sticks – they’re in most new controllers now, but the long and the short of it is that they’ll last longer than traditional sticks. They’re tuned a touch stiffer than the Xbox controller or Sony’s DualSense, and I love the feel of them in use. They’re also absolutely perfect in terms of accuracy, both achieving 100% on Gamepad Tester. They’re not the only star of this controller show, though.
The triggers are also Hall Effect, utilising the same magnetic sensors to ensure that they’ll live up to years of hammering. They also include my favourite combination of technologies, with a lockout switch in the seat of the trigger not just swapping the full range of the trigger, but altering the input into a microswitch digital button. It’s sublime. It makes the Cyclone 2 perfect for twitchy FPSs as much as RPGs – I’ve hammered mine for both Overwatch 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition – and it’s been seamless moving between the two.
The only question mark I have is that the lockout switch is quite small, and if there’s one part of the Cyclone 2 that I’d wonder how well it’ll hold up to thousands of movements, it would be this one. That said, it’s shown no signs of any wear through our use, and I’m willing to trust GameSir’s quality control and testing when the rest of the controller is as good as it is.
The Cyclone 2 boasts two large back paddles which sit comfortably underneath your fingers. They are made from extremely smooth plastic, which is a little disconcerting at first, but you soon get used to them. I think I’d have preferred them to be textured, but it’s a minor gripe. The fact that there’s only two back paddles may make hardcore users sniff, but for my personal use case, I generally find two to be more reliable, simply because there’s a reduced chance of pressing the wrong button.
Beyond the paddles, the menu buttons on the front of the controller include a central ‘Home’-style button, the Xbox-like Menu, Options and Share buttons and then an additional ‘M’ button between the D-pad and right analogue stick that lets you alter the RGB options, rumble levels and back button mapping on the fly. It’s a very simple and intuitive system, and I was surprised by how much functionality GameSir were able to cram in by combining it with other inputs.
If you want to dive into the customisation further you can use Gamesir’s Connect software for PC. From here you can alter a huge number of different things, from simple things like the RGB lighting and button mapping, to more detailed and specialised setups for your triggers and analogue sticks, altering deadzones and even the responsiveness of the internal gyro and rumble motors. It’s an impressive setup with one major caveat: at the moment there’s a known bug that can soft lock the controller if you attempt to update it – there’s a reset button on the back of the controller that undoes the lockout, and the whole process is something I don’t remember coming across elsewhere. However, everything else within the Connect software works as you’d expect, but it’s worth waiting to update your controller’s firmware until Gamesir have a fix in place for this.
Gamesir are making a mockery of the competition at the moment, and the Cyclone 2 readily beats out far more expensive controllers. Thrustmaster’s HEART controller has similarly great sticks, but everything else about it feels less premium than the Cyclone 2, and it’s wired-only. There’s more unusual offerings to consider though, like the Manba One which features a screen on the controller itself, letting you customise it all without any other software, which is handy, and it has the same multiplatform connectivity at a similar price.
