I no longer play fortnite. However I still subscribe to beaks – you should like, subscribe and hit the bell. He ran some content with this.. thing – the Aerzon Keypad and how he uses it in fortnite. It is not precisely a new idea, a keyboard style input device that is meant to be more comfortable. In the first video beaks from fortnite is primarily concerned with what this thing was, perhaps why you would swap to it, etc. To be totally honest I flicked through it, thought that it looked like a new keyboard/claw style thing and discounted it. Closed tab. Again this is not a new idea, these keypad gaming product things have existed for the better part of two decades in various iterations. They have generally been trash for FPS. You get less keys but you get an 8-way directional thump stick which is useless in FPS. You really need to be able to go A -> D quickly in shooters for many reasons. So you are left with a tiny keyboard with palm rest, maybe a scroll wheel or other widget. Even here these had some limited benefit over a traditional keyboard – if you wanted to use macros the macro assignable keys were generally in a better location than traditional macro keyboard macro keys. The thumb stick on the Aerzon is a true analogue stick – this is potentially even more useless in traditional FPS than the older style keypads 8-way sticks. You don’t need to move like this in FPS, its simply unneeded and the loss of instant input from a button/key is a hindrance. However beaks thinks this is important, coming from a controller background.
Lets preface the rest of this with something important – I have never used this and have no intention of using it or a similar style of keypad. However Beaks leaves his audience hanging on a verdict. Not sure if this is because he does not want to cop flak for recommending such an expensive product or what but the second video is essentially an “update on using this thing” rather than “you should buy it”. Evidently he likes it because he has stuck with it/seems intending to keep using the Aerzon Keypad in fortnite.
Lets just rip this from the Aerzon website because they explain the concept quite well.
We have made a gaming keypad that helps to play PC games tremendously easy. Thumbstick is great for movement and frees your WASD fingers for easier mashing of fully programmable keys.
The primary differentiator here, which I am sure Razer and the other manufacturers will pick up on and integrate into their products in future if the Azeron stays popular – is the analogue stick. All the other things, the crazy looking buttons, the adjustableness, while nice are not all that different to other products. The “keys” sound like the are driven using mouse button switches rather than mechanical switches on a regular gaming keyboard. This might make using it nicer and ergonomics/comfort seem to be a big reason why Aerzon exist. This is not my interest – I want to know if it improves gameplay and gives an advantage. Changing from a cherry key to mouse button style input will change things slightly but is not ground breaking. Interestingly the Aerzon people do not make much brouhaha over the analogue thumbstick. Beaks did, however. The premise is simple – with a keyboard you can move in 8 directions (A, AW, W, WD.. and so on) but with a controller type WASD input you can move.. 360 degrees. If W is 0degrees and WD is 45degrees with an analogue thumb stick you can also move forwards at 42degrees, 15degrees and so on. The Aerzon Keypads analogue thumbstick easily facilitates greater freedom of movement direction than a traditional keyboard WASD setup.
This, combined with freeing up your other four fingers is why it is potentially awesome for fortnite. To be completely honest as soon as I saw it (the second time in the second video) the potential was there. It is obvious. Stick movement on one finger and then free up all the other fingers for building and editing.. and this was before I even realised that the analogue stick was analogue or that existing keypad style gaming peripherals did not have analogue sticks. I have forever discounted these gaming keypads as garbage (and rightfully so) but fortnite might be the one game where it makes sense to a degree, primarily because there are many other binds and players need to press the binds much more often than changing weapons in older FPS. The building and edit keys are similar level of importance as movement, possibly more.
And part of the reason why the Azeron keypad and similar is possibly useful in fortnite is also player movement. Movement is not as important as in other FPS titles. Strafe is very muted compared to forwards and back movement. You do not need to juke back/forth as you would in other titles. When building 90s players typically hold forward and strafe a bit, this is not movement involved. Strafe aiming is not as much of a thing due to weapon mechanics and the slow strafe speed in general.
So lets recap the why: Players can move with one finger (thumb) while freeing up the rest of their keyboard hand for building and editing tasks. If you think this sounds interesting then the Azeron keypad may be for you. The older products that are similar from Razer and elsewhere have never taken off for FPS. This is because the thumbpad is not really suitable for FPS gaming. Some examples of things that are simply impossible on an analogue thumb stick or 8 way D-pad : You cannot press A+D, release one and get instant movement in the opposite direction. You cannot change from W to S instantly, you always have to go across the thumbsticks center. You cannot add A/D input to W/S by pressing a button without taking the time to rotate the stick to the correct position. This, imo, is why they are not good for FPS, particularly Arena FPS that I personally prefer. Having said that Fortnite movement is primarily forward with less side to side or back movement. This is because forward is significantly faster than strafing. So from this perspective using a thumb stick is possibly acceptable here. On top of this Fortnite also has building/editing, which requires a decent number of keys as well as fast inputs..
Fortnite seems to have (purely by accident) created a game that can finally make use of a gaming keypad like the Azeron with thumbstick at a higher skill level. The thumbstick is ok for movement because the movement is dumbed down, meanwhile freeing up four fingers for building/editing makes a huge amount of sense.
I think Beaks 360degree movement bit is off base, not important and potentially a negative. He is a converted console player and misses that aspect. If he could show examples where walking movment in 360 degrees is useful it might shed light on this aspect. Until then my assumption is he likes it purely because of his console background.
The main difference is the Analogue stick and this is the primary reason you would want this product over others if you are considering switching from a keyboard. Obviously the Azeron may be more ergonomic, have different keys/switches from other gaming keypads but overall from a gameplay advantage perspective it is the separate analogue thumbstick. This is the most important aspect of the product. Azeron – if you offered a keyboard style product with an analogue thumb stick I imagine it would take off.
Everything else is icing on the cake, or not, depending on your view of things. Even this analogue thumbstick may only be icing and not really all that interesting. The best aspect is thumb for movement, fingers for building/editing always being free.
This is the question that Beaks should have answered. Based on the above I would say no – you should not drop 120 Euros (~135USD) on a device that you may or may not like whos sole differentiator from a gameplay advantage is an analogue thumbstick. For starters there are other alternatives, while not having analogue sticks will give you a good indication if you can get used to or even like this type of setup without spending this much coin. Plus there seems to be a significant wait for the Azeron keypads. Going into writing this I was not aware that the old style keypad products did not have analogue sticks and was ready to get out the pitchforks straight away. As it turns out the Razer products have the equivalent of 8-way D-Pads, which in my opinion would give users a clear indication of what playing with this type of setup would be like, you may even prefer one.
In the early 2000s I dropped $900AUD on a 9*12inch Wacom graphics tablet, partially for work but the main driver was to see if it could be used for improved aiming in Unreal Tournament. Short version : it was overall a waste of money. If you are interested in playing with this type of peripheral I would strongly suggest looking for a second hand Razer product off ebay or Amazon as they are significantly cheaper.
Razer Orbweaver gaming keypad at amazon
Razer Tartarus gaming keypad at amazon
Razer Nostromo gaming keypad at amazon
The Nostromo was originally a Belkin product that Razer picked up.
There are other Razer products as this idea has been around for almost ten years. Interestingly looking on aliexpress and taobao there are not really any cheap knock off versions of these products. The offbrand gaming keypads that do exist omit the thumb stick entirely.
At this point I had basically finished the article and was ready to post, but went on a bit more of a deep dive on Amazon to see if there was anything else. This turned up a few other options which are not ideal but do have analogue thumb sticks. Depending on your luck these may weigh in at less than the Azeron and they are also keyboard style products rather than.. insane mouse button spider looking things.
The first is an old Logitech product called the G13. This appears to have been out of production for over 10 years but many are available on ebay for reasonable (and unreasonable) prices. It also has ~1500 reviews and a four star rating on Amazon, so it was much loved. Don’t let the crazy prices dissuade you, they aren’t selling at $600USD. This product likely died since before fortnite there was little reason/demand for a thumbstick as movement in an FPS. If you are a fan of the Logitech G13 then the Azeron Keypad is a possible alternative for you.
The second product is newish and still in production from what I could see – if anything there is a 2016 version and a newer 2019 version. So it is still being updated. Say hello to the Hori TAC Pro Type M2 Gaming Keypad and mouse combo. Bit of a mouthful but there you go. Hori usually make high quality fighting game control sticks, so this is a bit of a departure from what they usually do – however they are a solid brand and the product seems to have decent reviews and support (refreshed recently). It has an analogue thumb stick which is what we are looking for. Obviously you get a (likely) garbage mouse so you are shelling out for stuff you probably won’t use, and it is intended for PS4 (but supported by PC) as a gamepad replacement for FPS there. Personally this would be my choice if I wanted to try one as it looks the most like a keyboard but still gives analogue thumb stick functionality.
The third product is not a keypad or gamepad. It is a mouse. The underlying concept here is to move direction keys off the majority of your non-mouse fingers. The Lexip Pu94 Mouse manages to achieve this by adding an analogue thumbstick to the side of your mouse. In this setup you would be using your right hand for aiming and for moving while your left hand/keyboard hand is freed up for everything else. Personally this sounds horrible but if your goal is to put movement onto a thumb stick.. well it achieves this.
Finally I would be interested to try to DIY something like this using a traditional controller analogue stick rather than this slimline version. This could then be mounted somehow just below your keyboard or to the side of you numpad. Maybe.
Lastly I would be interested in how useful simply putting +forward on a mouse key bind would be, freeing up all your fingers to build/edit when you only need to go forward. Or using pinky finger for forward and having other three fingers+thumb resting on building/edit binds rather than strafe+jump.
So to recap – I am unsure if an analogue thumb stick gives much benefit over an 8 way D-Pad found on the current Razer models but the idea of removing movement from WASD and freeing up fingers for building/editing is solid and if you can get used to it an obvious winner.