Nintendo Switch Fighting Game Arms Is Playable Without Motion Controls

Arms, Nintendo’s new fighting game for the Switch is playable with standard button controls. Nintendo has confirmed. Although the Joy-Con controllers’ motion options have dominated much of Arms‘ marketing so far, in a recent Nintendo Treehouse livestream, it has been confirmed that this is not the only way to play.

“It’s important to point out that [we’ve] been playing with the Joy-Con–one in each hand–using motion controls,” explained Nintendo localization producer Morgan Ritchie. “But obviously if you’re a purist and you like button controls, [and] you’d rather use a more traditional controller, you can of course do that as well.” This was then confirmed by Nintendo’s manager of product marketing, JC Rodrigo.

You can check out the segment at 52:18 in the video linked above. It’s nice that those who do not want to play with the Joy-Con controllers have a second option to best suit their play style.

However, Nintendo’s manager of product marketing, JC Rodrigo, did note that the movements translate well with the controllers and “You feel like you know what you’re doing” with the Joy-Con controllers and that you are “almost immediately functional at playing the game.”

Arms was announced during the recent Nintendo Switch event.