| Price | AliExpress & Amazon |
| Release | December 8, 2025 |
| Compatibility | NS2 / PC |
| Dimensions | 13.2″ x 8.4″ x 0.8″ |
| Cable | 3 m |
Other Editions
Introduction
It’s a good time to be alive as a fighting gamer. Following the earth shattering success of the C16 and C16-S, it’s not surprising that Haute42 decided to continue its bestselling series—this time with the C-AT.
The AT part of the C-AT’s name stands for adjustable travel, indicating the controller’s best feature. On a side note, it’s cool how the controller’s name can also be pronounced as “cat”. Meow!
That said, instead of Haute42 only improving one aspect of its previous controllers, the new C-AT features a bunch of improvements that we’ll reveal to you in this article.
Unboxing
Your C-AT should arrive in an elegantly black Haute42 box—with one of the biggest amounts of free accessories that any controller has ever offered its buyers:
- Hide Mountain switches (2)
- Wind Engine switches (2)
- 260 retaining rings (2)
- 240 retaining rings (2)
- 260 adjustment plate
- 240 adjustment plate
- Keycap & switch puller
- Wrist detachable rest
- Wrist rest stickers (2)
- White art sheets (2)
- Preset art sheets (7)
- USB-C cable
- User manual
Performance
The C-AT has many firsts. To start, it’s Haute42’s first controller with more than 16 buttons. Specifically, this controller has 18 buttons. So, it has six more buttons than the classic 12 button layout from back in the day.
Those extra buttons give the C-AT more than one layout. The three layouts are leverless, split, and WASD. Namely, there are extra buttons for your:
- Left pinky
- Left middle finger
- Left thumb
- Right thumb
- Right index finger
Unlike the usual 30 mm thumb buttons, the two thumb buttons in the C-AT’s center are 26 mm, so they’re bigger than the rest of its 24 mm buttons. Most importantly, all the main buttons allow you to adjust their travel distance using retaining rings and adjustment plates:
- The short level is 1.0 mm.
- The medium level is 0.6 mm.
- The long level is 0.3 mm.
The C-AT’s buttons have a bit of a “dry” texture to them, and they utilize the snappy Wind Engine switches that trigger fast. As for the function buttons, they’re bigger than most—specifically 14.5 mm—instead of tiny pins that may discomfort your fingers.
Those function buttons feature Kailh Hide Mountain switches, marking the C-AT as the first time we’ve witnessed Haute42 launch a controller with such switches.
The C-AT’s tactile, clicky, and hot swappable switches have a fully POM housing & stem in a way that reduces friction, resulting in smoother keystrokes.
By the way, it makes sense that Hide Mountains are slower than Wind Engines—because you don’t want to accidentally press the C-AT’s function buttons at a tournament.
Speaking of which, you can just toggle the tournament lock to disable the C-AT’s function buttons if you want. Otherwise, the function buttons are for:
- Back
- Start
- Home
- –
- T
T stands for turbo. Opposite from the C-AT’s function buttons is the iconic 1.3″ OLED screen that shows your:
- Input mode
- Turbo mode
- Directional mode
- SOCD cleaning mode
- Button press animation
It’s also awesome that the C-AT’s grip pad almost covers the entire bottom panel. Finally, the width is suitable for desk & lap placement, which is good for both playing at home and competing in tournaments (respectively).
Hardware
Here’s a continued explanation of the C-AT’s name. The C part stands for combination, meaning a combination of acrylic, plastic, and metal.
The C-AT’s keycaps are made of PBT, the grip pad is made of TPU, and the wrist rest is made of cotton. It’s nice that the cable is braided too.
What’s also nice is how the primary USB-C port in the back center is lockable. There’s even another USB-C port on the left. On the right, there’s a USB-A port where you can insert an adapter to make your C-AT compatible with additional modern consoles.
Appearance
The C-AT’s enclosure has a sleek black color—with a matching black cable—and the wrist rest is laser etched with a galaxy pattern. You can also paste a wrist rest sticker with a geometric pattern—or even a Shoto throwing a fireball.
You can actually buy a C-AT in black or white. In reality, here are the main differences per color:
- The white edition has black/orange keycaps.
- The black edition has all black keycaps with claw art on them—plus a bit of black Haute42 top panel art.
Additional top panel artworks include graffiti, rainbow, space, cyberpunk, racecar, and cat themes. Not digging these preset artworks? Just like the C-AT’s wrist rest is magnetically detachable, you can also magnetically lift up the top panel with the press of a button—located on the bottom panel’s lower right.
That way, you can insert brand new art that represents your taste. For custom C-AT art, we at The Arcade Stick would love to offer you our popular service. As a sample for you, here’s some art that our designer Felipe Fernandez put together for the C16 that we also printed:
(Maybe you have some digital C-AT art already. Just let us know, and we can print it for you.)
In general, the C-AT is UV coated to be anti-fingerprint and resistant to dust. Even the buttons are resistant to oil—as well as wear and tear.
Lastly, the C-AT’s buttons can benefit from custom RGB LED that lights them up like it’s a party. Just turn them on using the dedicated light toggle, and enjoy the show.
Conclusion
With the C-AT, Haute42 didn’t just improve one or two things. It improved many things, such as giving you the freedom to adjust the buttons’ travel distance.
Moreover, the 18 buttons give you access to three layouts—in a way that can give you a competitive advantage—and customizing the C-AT’s art is super easy due to the magnetic top panel.
If you’ve never bought from Haute42, now is the time. This is probably the Evo award winning company’s most ambitious controller yet. So, buy a C-AT today, pounce at your opponent like a cat, and purr your way to victory!
- 18 buttons with adjustable travel
- Leverless, split, and WASD layouts
- Hot swappable switches
- Desk and lap playable
- Huge grip pad
- OLED screen
- RGB LED
- Braided cable
- Lockable USB-C port
- Three USB ports total
- Easily customizable art
- Upgradeable compatibility
- Insane amount of free accessories
Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Links
- AliExpress
- Amazon (White)
- Amazon (Black)