I’ve been using the boomerific right-stick-moves-camera FPS controls for over 20 years now, since Halo: CE first came out for the original xbox. Then this past week I beat Doom Eternal using the flickstick/gyro aim control setup right from the start. In short: it’s amazing, it’s a revolution in the feel of playing FPS games! I like it better than mouse+keyboard because you combine all the ergonomic greatness of controller button layouts with the precision of mouse aiming. Cannot possibly recommend it strongly enough!

I used the steam deck which includes both gyro aiming and touch-sensitive thumbsticks so gyro is only active when you’re touching them with your thumbs. This lets you reposition the deck after you’ve tilted it without also moving your POV, kind of the equivalent of lifting up & re-centering your mouse when it reaches the edge of the mousepad. Other controllers with gyro aiming & PC compatibility include the nintendo switch pro controller, which does not have touch-sensitive thumbsticks, and the PS5 controller (which may or may not idk never touched one). For those you’d have to map one of the buttons to disable gyro so you can renormalize controller position.

You should be prepared to do a fair amount of fiddling with the control scheme at the system level. There is also a fair bit of jank; changing any of the controller options deactivates gyro aiming, like it literally stops working. This frustrated me quite a bit until I found out that just opening the Steam > Settings > Controllers menu makes it work again for some reason. Occasionally after coming back from suspend/resume there will be gyro drift that you can fix by recalibrating the gyro, but this stopped happening at some point for reasons I can’t divine.

Here’s the skill progression timeline as I played the game:

Level 1: Spent a lot of time getting gimbal-locked looking straight up or down then beat to death by demons. Only used gyro to aim, essentially no use of flickstick. Fairly frustrated at this point; went days at a time without picking up the game.

Level 2: Slightly more graceful but still dying a lot. Tried the first slayer gate but got my ass kicked like five times then gave up. Getting pretty good at tracking demons at close range by whipping around using the gyro. Still not really using the stick to turn at all. Still fairly frustrating.

Level 3-4: Things starting to come together. I begin to get into the rhythm of combat and die quite a bit less. I take the time to further customize the controls; Doom Eternal uses a weapon wheel where you use the right thumbstick to select the weapon to use, but system-level flickstick mappings disable this. I have to create a new controller layer that is activated when holding right bumper (which brings up the weapon wheel) that changes the right thumbstick to function like an ordinary joystick. I get through these levels without much trouble. Still only really using gyro to turn.

Levels 5-6: I tip my toes into using the flickstick for smooth camera rotation as I am exploring the environment outside of combat. I don’t flick it, I just rotate the stick smoothly around the outside of its range. This starts fairly naturally as an effort-saving measure so I am not continually turning & resetting the deck. I also add a mapping for the buttons on the rear of the controller, so I can jump/dash/flame belch/change grenade type without having to take my thumbs off the thumbsticks. Trying to use the back buttons in combat is pretty rough and I often press the wrong thing.

Levels 7: Here is where I first glimpse flickstick mastery: there’s a boss requiring constant circular strafing; impossible to do using gyro without driving yourself mad! I begin to integrate flickstick smooth turning controls into combat. I also add a second controller layer for the map menu, so I can rotate the map with the right thumbstick when it is active.

Levels 8+: At this point I really think I have achieved mastery. I begin to offload more and more turning operations to the flickstick, only using gyro controls for fine aiming once I’m pointed in the right direction. I even occasionally use the flicking functionality, mostly for quick 90-degree turns (180-degree turns are still a bit too difficult to coordinate with the left thumbstick). The back button mappings are really paying dividends. I feel totally locked in. I run through slayer gate challenges like nothing.

So basically it takes at least 10 hours to get really good at it. Also, if you’re playing Doom Eternal specifically (or the 2016 Doom) use classic gun hold mode where the gun points directly down the middle of the screen. That in combo with gyro aiming just feels so… tactile in a really compelling way that is difficult to describe.

Anyway thanks for reading my wall of text, happy to answer any other questions you have. It really is an amazing improvement: as large as the change from N64-style single-stick FPS controls to dual-stick FPS controls on the xbox.