The PuK Thumbstick is an accessory for smartphones that hopes to address the one universal truth about mobile gaming: virtual controls are absolutely rubbish. And while the main application for this hardware is Android/iOS gaming, we figured we’d look at it through a different lens: the PS5’s Remote Play function.
But before we get into that, what is the PuK Thumbstick anyway? Well, it’s a circular little pad that sits on the screen and acts as a sort of analogue stick. It’s purely physical, there’s no software involved. You place it on the screen (over the virtual stick position) and it glides about giving you physical movement control. To make this work a larger circular part sits on the back and keeps the front pad in place magnetically. And there’s just enough movement to fairly accurately simulate a real stick and the pad snaps back to the middle.
Of course, the real question is whether or not it actually works and to test it, we had the perfect game to act as a guinea pig for it. Brotato is one of our favourite games here. It’s an auto-shooter in the same vein as Vampire Survivors which means that, during the main gameplay, the only control is your left stick. Perfect.
The whole Remote Play thing was pretty seamless and pairing up the PS5 with a Samsung S23 Ultra was no problem at all, apart from us having to buy PXPlay, which is the best PSN Remote Play app on Android (surpassing Sony’s official effort). The app has virtual controls mapped onto the screen, so all you have to do is place the PuK right there on the left stick area and you’re on your way.
The good news is that the PuK works rather well. The pad has a good rubbery feel that offers plenty of grip, the amount of movement and snap back was better than you’d expect and, crucially, we were able to play Brotato pretty well. So, the main take away here is that it works. Other auto-shooters such as Vampire Survivors (via remote play) or Halls of Torment are definitely improved by using the PuK rather than just slipping around on the touchscreen with your thumb.
It’s not perfect though. Samsung do tend to make very slippery phones and even with a textured decal skin on the back, the larger magnetic part of the PuK did drift around a little. In the end we found ourselves holding it in place with our index finger which works fine for a game like Brotato but isn’t as good if you need your finger for other controls. So expect to keep correcting the position of the PuK now and again unless you want to shell out for their additional ‘sticky disc pad’ which is an optional extra.
If you’re looking to upgrade your mobile gaming experience, you can pick up a PuK here. It’ll set you back £22.99 but if you’re a keen mobile gamer or PSN Remote Player this is a good solution for the age old problem of trying to control games on a touchscreen and it’s small and handy enough to be something you can carry about and attach when needed, and it’s less bulky than a separate controller. We’re surprised at how good it actually felt to use and it didn’t hold us back in our Brotato play, so yeah, this is pretty decent.