The new PDP Riffmaster looks like an average guitar controller at a passing glance. In many ways, the $129.99 controller coming out in April is exactly what you expect. But aside from its familiar strum bar, whammy bar, and clusters of colored frets, it has a hardware feature that could make it sought after by a crowd that has no interest in playing music games.
PDP snuck a Joy-Con-like analog stick near the top of the controller’s neck, right next to where your thumb naturally rests as you hold the guitar. While its advertised purpose is mostly for mundane stuff, like navigating menus in Rock Band 4, it opens up a box of possibilities for speedrunners and challenge runners who enjoy using guitar controllers for non-music games.
For over a decade, many have used guitar controllers to play (and sometimes, unbelievably, finish) games, notably ones that are difficult even with standard controllers, like Dark Souls. The finesse that some exude during play is remarkable, considering they’re moving the character without an analog stick while also controlling the camera lock-on function, attacking, and doing a range of other commands with a very unintuitive button layout. Benjamin “Bearzly” Gwin’s control scheme for beating Dark Souls back in 2014 with a guitar controller is something to behold.
Noted non-traditional controller aficionado, modder, and engineer Louis Hamilton (AKA SuperLouis64 on YouTube) told Polygon that where he expects the Riffmaster to shine is by aiding the player with camera lock-on and general movement. Looking back at his time with previous guitar controllers, he said “Whenever the lock-on system would untarget a boss mid-fight, I pretty much would tell my chat ‘GG’ as I scrambled to press the camera reset/lock-on button on my guitar in hopes I can see the boss again.”
Hamilton is also excited about how the Riffmaster’s analog stick could make it possible to challenge-run “other genres that practically require two joysticks,” like first- and third-person shooters. He previously finished Halo 3 on Legendary difficulty using a different guitar controller, but with a custom control scheme that’s so punishing I wouldn’t wish this challenge on my enemies. He used the orange fret to shift between button assignments, with most buttons having dual purposes. “I pretty much had to line up my shots with the guitar, then move, so it felt like I was playing a pseudo turn-based game while my enemies were not,” Hamilton told me. While he doesn’t expect the Riffmaster to make non-music games easier to play on a technical level, he hopes that there will be less work required to adapt its controls.
To address Hamilton’s hope, the Riffmaster is seemingly easier to adapt. Upon plugging it into my PC and enabling Steam Input for all supported controllers, it “worked” without any tweaks on my part in Capcom’s remake of Resident Evil 4. Anyone attempting a challenge run of the game would likely want to refine the controls to their preferences with control-mapping software (the analog stick didn’t move Leon as it does natively on a traditional controller), but it was an encouraging sign that getting use out of the Riffmaster’s analog stick isn’t limited to the games it was designed for.
It’s hard to say if the Riffmaster will lead to a reemergence of guitar controller-based speedruns and challenge runs. But its existence alone is a good thing. At $129.99, it isn’t cheap, but it’s far less expensive than most of the second-hand guitar controllers listed on Amazon and eBay. Perhaps the lower price will attract more players to join the community. If nothing else, I’d love to see some of the old guard put the Riffmaster through its paces on Twitch.
