Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Features

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s controls are easier with these Switch controllers

Giovanni Colantonio
By

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is out now and it’s receiving rave reviews from critics and fans alike. While there’s a lot to love, the Switch sequel does have one sticking point: its complicated controls.

Like Breath of the Wild, Link’s latest adventure requires fans to do a lot of button juggling as they swap weapons, shields, items, abilities, and more on the fly. Tears of the Kingdom is even more complicated than its predecessor, as some of its new features require players to press and hold a button while pressing another and moving the control stick.

Recommended Videos

If you’ve been struggling to get it all down, here’s a suggestion: Get yourself some back buttons.

Related

Remapping Tears of the Kingdom

Link holds a Purah Pad in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Back buttons are still a niche concept in game controllers, usually reserved for “pro” gamepads like the DualSense Edge. They allow players to map any button to one on the back of the controller, which can be handy. While no official Nintendo controller has that feature, a handful of third-party ones do. I put one to the test and quickly found that I was able to alleviate some of my control confusion with some simple remaps.

For my test, I broke out my PowerA Fusion, a third-party controller that has four mappable back paddles. In less than a minute, I remapped several buttons to make Tears of the Kingdom a little easier. The big headache I looked to fix was some complexity with throwing items. To accomplish that, I need to hold down the right bumper, press up on the D-pad, and then navigate through an item list with a control stick. It’s a little messy and often ends in my throwing my equipped weapon instead of an item.

To alleviate that, I mapped the right bumper to a back paddle as well as the up button on the D-pad. That would allow me to more easily get into the right menu on the back and only deal with the control stick on the front. I’d find similar ease from mapping the left bumper to another paddle, allowing me to more easily open up Link’s ability wheel and scroll through it with a stick. It may sound small, but those changes can make the controls smoother to navigate.

Which Switch controller is best for Tears of the Kingdom?

A hand picks up an 8BitDo Ultimate controller.

So what are the best Switch controllers with back buttons? If you want something that feels like the normal Switch Pro controller, go with the  as it’ll give you four paddles to work with — just know that it’s wired and doesn’t include amiibo support or motion controls. If you’re a handheld player, consider grabbing the , which features two back buttons.

Your best bet, though, is the . This $70 wireless gamepad features two back buttons and comes with its own charging dock too. It’s a handy controller to have around and one that’s compatible with other devices via Bluetooth too. That should hopefully make your stay in Hyrule a little more manageable.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is out now on Nintendo Switch.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Giovanni Colantonio
Giovanni Colantonio
Section Editor, Gaming
Giovanni is a writer and video producer focusing on happenings in the video game industry. He has contributed stories to…
Tears of the Kingdom’s Ultrahand creations reveal its biggest strength
the legend of zelda tears kingdom review boat

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has only been out for a few days, and players are already stretching the limits of what its Ultrahand system can do. From Korok-torturing crucifixes to trojan horses to NSFW robots, Ultrahand can clearly do a lot more than open doors or create simple vehicles. Tears of the Kingdom is a testament to how games that rely on the player’s creativity are so magical and how they quickly get ridiculous and go viral.

Tears of the Kingdom also stands in contrast to most other games that offer that type of player experience. Player creations like this are usually labeled as “user-generated content” and take center stage in creation-focused games like Dreams and Meet Your Maker, as well as more monetizable ones like Fortnite and Horizon Worlds. However, Tears of the Kingdom stands out as a tremendous single-player adventure, reminding us of the type of creative joy that only games can deliver.
The joy of creating
I’m not the best at creating things in Tears of the Kingdom, but even I have some fun anecdotes that have to do with my Ultrahand builds. I spent hours trying to build a complicated ramp for a ball in a Shrine puzzle, only for the simplest two-platform build to work way better immediately. Later, I made a little flying machine to bring a Korok to his friend, but accidentally fell off and was left watching as the Korok and vehicle crashed into the side of a mountain.

Read more
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s shrines are even better than Breath of the Wild’s
Link stands in front of a shrine in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

As a puzzle game fan, my favorite part of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is its shrines. These mini-dungeons often act as ingenious little puzzle chambers that test my understanding of the game’s abilities and physics. I was thrilled when I loaded up The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and immediately found that the development team kept that idea intact for the sequel. I’d have over 150 new shrines to hunt down, including a handful that were unlocked via navigation puzzles in the open world.

It’s not just the fact that shrines return, though, that got me excited; it’s the fact that they’re even better this time around. That’s thanks in large part to how they interact with the sequel’s crafting systems, serving a larger purpose beyond giving Link some scattered challenges to solve.
Driving permit exams
Tears of the Kingdom’s shrines aren’t much different from Breath of the Wild’s on paper. Each one functions like a Portal test chamber built around a specific gameplay mechanic or theme. One has players solving puzzles using buoyancy physics, while another has them ascending their way to the top of a rotating cube. Even combat-focused shrines have specific gimmicks this time, testing players’ mastery of specific item fusions or environmental interactions.

Read more
With Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda gets the spotlight she’s always deserved
Zelda with the Master Sword in Tears of the Kingdom.

For 37 years, the Legend of Zelda series has held its place as gaming’s most important franchises. It carries the same gravitas as classic literature, with several entries in the series feeling like canonical classics that should be in the syllabus of any video game course. It’s a collection of foundational tales that helped build what an adventure game plays like, but also what a fundamental hero’s journey story looks like in the medium. And of course, standing tall at the center of Zelda’s timeless nature is … Link.

Yes, despite Zelda’s name being the core of the franchise’s branding, the Hylian princess long played second fiddle to the series’ voiceless protagonist. In early games, she was a distressed damsel to be saved. She’d get to show off a bit of her power in later ones, but Link -- the hero of time -- tended to get most of the attention.

Read more