Turtle Beach Afterglow Wave Review – A Nice Player 2 Gamepad for Switch 2 That’s Missing One Too Many Features feedzy_import_tag

Nice to Hold, but the D-Pad Gets Short Shrift

The Afterglow Wave is a very comfortable gamepad that feels a lot like holding a Switch Pro controller. It’s weighty without feeling heavy, with all the buttons comfortably in reach of my thumbs and fingers. Button feel is a little inconsistent throughout, though; the shoulder buttons feel about right to me, but the face buttons are stiff and, along with the grip-mounted back buttons, are very clicky and noisy. The d-pad feels about right, although it had some issues that I’ll get to shortly.

Speaking of the analog sticks, they feel very much like what they are: TMR sticks. Like many other TMR and Hall Effect sticks, they give easily and smoothly, but spring back to the center quickly and accurately. They feel very nice – although I prefer a little more resistance, especially in games that require very precise movement. If you’re familiar with this kind of stick, you probably already know whether you like that that dynamic or not.

I am not a fan of the caps on the analog sticks. They’re concave, with rimmed edges that are sharp enough I could feel them dragging over the ridges of my fingertips, which is my own personal Vietnam nails-on-a-chalkboard. That said, the cupped design helped keep my thumbs on the sticks when they were inside the depression. But with certain motions, I tend to roll the outside of the cap around my thumb – and in those cases, the sticks slipped more often than the Switch 2 Pro controller. Otherwise, they were responsive and sensitive, in a good way.

The in-game experience varied depending on the games I played. In Tetris 99, the Afterglow Wave’s d-pad was almost as bad as those of Nintendo’s Pro controllers. I didn’t find myself accidentally hard-dropping tetrominos quite as often as with Nintendo’s gamepads, but occasionally, the d-pad seemed to bounce back if I let go of a direction quickly, causing them to shift the opposite direction one square, making me to place a tetromino in the wrong spot. In Metroid Prime Remastered, the motion controls worked well, but felt just a bit too sensitive, transmitting micro-movements to the screen that the Switch 2 Pro controller seems to ignore. That could be a good thing to some, but for me, it was a bit dizzying and unpleasant.

On the other hand, the analog sticks were plenty responsive in F-Zero X for the N64 and F-Zero GX for the GameCube, both played in their respective Nintendo Switch Online apps. Being able to twitchily turn in those games is paramount, so that was a bit of good news. Control stayed tight and I didn’t notice any change in delay even when I played from about 30 feet away, which is Turtle Beach’s stated wireless range for these controllers. I don’t know who is playing that far away from their TV, but hey, it’s nice to have options.

Weird Design Choices and Missing Features

One thing that drove me nuts throughout testing was the placement of the home and capture buttons – for some reason, they’re on the outside of the plus and minus buttons. (In contrast, they’re in the middle on the Switch 2 Pro controller.) This means that every third time I tried to pause the game, I went to the home screen instead. Sure, that effectively accomplishes the same thing, but it’s jarring and bad! I’d love to be able to remap them, but this controller isn’t remappable via the Switch 2’s interface.

That’s also annoying because it means you can’t assign the back buttons that way; instead, you do it by holding down the triangle-shaped button on the bottom front edge, then tapping the back button you want to map to, then pressing the button you’d like to assign to it. The Afterglow Wave also lacks rumble, which I wouldn’t mind in isolation, but here is another bit of straw on this controller’s shaky back.

This controller’s biggest problem is absolutely that it doesn’t wake the Switch 2. In my book, that automatically takes it out of the running to be a cheaper Pro controller alternative – I’ve lived in a world where I can turn on my game consoles from my couch for 20 years now, and I’m not going back.

Maybe the price works if you dig the controller’s RGB schtick. The colored LEDs surrounding the analog sticks and lurking beneath the wavy lines etched into the face can show static colors of your choosing, or effects like a slowly-morphing rainbow. One effect sees them react to the movement of your analog sticks by cycling through colors. It’s nice, I suppose, although I’m never really looking at the controller while I’m playing. Still, the lights do make it easy to find in a dark room.

At the end of the day, am I mad at the Afterglow Wave? Not really; it’s a fine controller to have around the house. But the price is a huge sticking point that I just can’t get past. For $65, I can almost buy three GuliKit ES gamepads, a budget option that can still wake the Switch 2. Or I could pick up almost one full 8bitdo Ultimate 2 Bluetooth Controller, which also wakes the system, is remappable (via an 8bitdo app), and comes with a nice charging cradle. I can’t directly vouch for either since I haven’t used them, but I can say that the previous 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller, which is one of IGN’s top picks for the Switch 2, has also been one of my favorite controllers since I bought it a couple of years ago. Assuming the Ultimate 2 follows in its footsteps, I’m sure it’s great.

Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom’s Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn’t be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.