Press the ellipsis (.) button twice to mute yourself. You can speak and hear responses clearly, with minimal noise from buttons or joysticks (no headset needed). If you want to join up, tap the push notification, press A, and you'll join their party. If you have a friend who owns a Backbone and starts a game, you'll get a push notification. Backbone button, A, boom-I'm in the CoD lobby or on my Stardew Valley farm. Then press 'A' and it will open the last game you played. Attach the controller and press the bright orange Backbone button to open the app. You can launch your games in it, and it adds social features and screen capturing. The Backbone app is powerful and user-friendly. For now, at least, Backbone is iOS only.īackbone One as a stand-alone controller is good, but in conjunction with its required app, the experience can rival gaming consoles. It also doesn't yet come in additional colors.Īndroid phones are not supported, and at this point, the company isn't sure whether it will delve into that world.

I don't mind slipping my iPhone 11's thin silicone case off, but if you use something like an Otterbox, the removal process might be too cumbersome. It's also incompatible with phone cases and grips. It's too awkward to keep it on your phone between gaming sessions. I mostly use it at home, but you'd need a bag to carry it with you on the go. The left-hand side has a headphone jack, making it more audio-friendly than the iPhone itself. On the bottom right-hand side, there's a Lightning port, which enables pass-through charging without the cord getting in your way. It has the exact buttons, triggers, and joysticks you find on a console controller, with a plastic design that feel similar to a PlayStation pad, but with very clicky, snappy buttons like the Nintendo Switch. ( Find out if your iPhone is compatible here.) It fits snugly around the phone, and attaching it is fairly foolproof. The gadget works with any iPhone that has iOS 13 or newer. You fit the built-in Lightning connector to your iPhone's charging port and stretch the sides of the device to clamp. While the video game streaming service beta itself needs some work, the Backbone performed flawlessly and felt like it’ll be an essential part of the experience moving forward (once Microsoft works through the issues on its end.) Playing games on iOS was equally fun, especially with more traditional gaming experiences like Dead Cells.The Backbone One adds console-style controls to your iPhone.

Using the Backbone on Microsoft’s new XCloud beta worked well with some adjusting, as I discovered the default sensitivity options on games like Gears of War or Doom: Eternal weren’t quite tight enough for me. I completed a whole level (including a boss fight!) from my couch without breaking a sweat or feeling like I’d lost anything by playing on my phone with the controller. Playing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PlayStation remote play was a seamless process. The controller feels good in your hand, providing an extremely familiar sensation to those used to playing with a traditional controller. Using the Backbone is a legitimately fun experience and is instantly better than using the iPhone’s touch screen. You can even connect with friends and even group up with them from within the app itself.

The app is super handy, allowing you to see what iOS games are popular with the device, what other Backbone gamers are playing right now, tailored recommendations, launch remote play sessions, and much more. It’s super simple to set up and only takes a few seconds to get going - including me taking my phone case off to use it.įrom there, using the Backbone is super easy you can still use the touch screen of your iPhone to navigate over to the app of your choice, whether it’s an individual iPhone game, a remote play application, or even the Backbone application itself. The Backbone is inherently unfussy in its simple execution a retractable back adjusts to fit the size of your Apple device and then connects to your phone through the included Lightning port. While you can use the Backbone One for more heavy-duty gaming (more on that in a bit), the original intention of the controller is for mobile gaming on your iPhone.

Backbone one controller review