{"id":91034,"date":"2026-10-12T13:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T17:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=91034"},"modified":"2026-10-12T14:44:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T18:44:48","slug":"the-best-controllers-for-playing-pc-games-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=91034","title":{"rendered":"The Best Controllers for Playing PC Games in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<section data-transform=\"mobile-ad-break\">\n<p>After spending several weeks testing 30 of the PC controllers, the Flydigi Vader 5 Pro stands out for its clicky mechanical buttons, long-lasting battery, and Hall-Effect thumbsticks whose tension you can adjust at any time.<\/p>\n<p>But players who want a symmetrical stick layout or a pad built for large hands should look elsewhere. <\/p>\n<section data-transform=\"catalog-carousel\" data-catalogid=\"01f0f15f-dc81-41f0-8e90-201a82c43ee0\" data-items=\"[243609,243610,243611,243612,243613,243614]\" data-show-pricing=\"true\" data-highlighted-item=\"null\">\n<p>I&#8217;m a journalist with more than 12 years of experience writing about games and reviewing hardware. I play most of my games on PC, and I switch between mouse input and a controller depending on what I&#8217;m playing. I rotate through several PC controllers every year, from brands big and small, and have a good sense of the strengths and weaknesses of different manufacturers.<\/p>\n<p>Away from PC, I play my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/tech\/nintendo-switch-2\">Nintendo Switch<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/tech\/xbox-series-s\">Xbox Series S<\/a> with controllers, often third-party devices that are compatible with PC.<\/p>\n<p>How I Pick PC Controllers<\/p>\n<p>To pick the best controller for PC gaming, I first compiled a longlist of potential pads that I thought had a shot. I then cut that down to a shortlist and tested everything on it, arriving at a handful of recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>When I began this process I didn&#8217;t have a concrete blueprint in mind for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After spending several weeks testing 30 of the PC controllers, the Flydigi Vader 5 Pro stands out for its clicky mechanical buttons, long-lasting battery, and Hall-Effect thumbsticks whose tension you can adjust at any time. But players who want a symmetrical stick layout or a pad built for large hands should look elsewhere. I&#8217;m a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":91036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91034"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91038,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91034\/revisions\/91038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}