8BitDo marks 30 years of Tomb Raider with two pads

Lara Croft turns 30 this year, and 8BitDo has turned up with the merchandise. The controller maker has put two licensed Tomb Raider 30th Anniversary pads up for pre-order: an Ultimate 3 Controller for Xbox at $119.99 and a Pro 3 Bluetooth Gamepad at $79.99, both listed to ship on 24 October.

What is actually going on

Both controllers are wrapped in the same idea. 8BitDo says the designs take their cue from the Lost Valley, the jungle ruin where the original 1996 Tomb Raider put a Tyrannosaurus in Lara's path. That means sandstone tones, weathered wall textures and creeping vines, with a gold circular mechanism on the Pro 3 standing in for the puzzle pieces and relics of the tombs. The Ultimate 3 controller's page runs through the eras instead, from the 1996 to 2000 originals through The Angel of Darkness, the Legend years and the Survivor trilogy, and pairs each one with a piece of Lara art.

Underneath the paint they are 8BitDo's current hardware. Both pads use TMR joysticks with a 12-bit ADC sampling chip, Hall-effect triggers, remappable fast bumpers on the shoulders, and pro-level back buttons. The Ultimate 3 for Xbox adds the firm's Dual Force Ring, which pairs an adjustable-tension stick with a soft-stop silicone ring underneath, plus a zinc-alloy D-pad finished in gold plating, triggers with two switchable stop levels and customisable six-axis motion control.

The Pro 3 is the one to watch

The cheaper Pro 3 is the more interesting pad. It ships with an integrated charging dock that reconnects the controller when you lift it out, and its magnetic ABXY buttons are cut with Atlantean symbols so you can swap between Switch and Xbox layouts, with a button puller in the box. 8BitDo has also recalibrated the bumpers and D-pad for a clickier feel, made the trigger stops switchable, and included two themed joystick caps and two ball-top caps for players who like to fiddle.

Both are listed as Tomb Raider collaborations rather than generic colour variants, which means the licensing has been paid for and the prices reflect it. The Ultimate 3 for Xbox carries a $119.99 tag against $79.99 for the Pro 3, and both store listings read shipping on 24 October 2026, with pre-orders open now on 8BitDo's own store and at Amazon in the US and UK.

Our opinion

Anniversary controllers are usually a logo slapped on a black shell and a twenty dollar premium, so it is worth saying that 8BitDo has done the work here: the Lost Valley theme runs through the moulding, the vine patterns and the gold mechanism, and the Pro 3 in particular looks like a prop that escaped from a tomb rather than a pad wearing a franchise. The pricing is the part that decides this. The Pro 3 at $79.99 is a fair ask for a pad with TMR sticks and a charging dock, and the dock is why we would point most people at it. The Ultimate 3 for Xbox at $119.99 is a harder sell when the difference is largely the tension ring and the gold D-pad. Buy the Pro 3 if you want the theme; buy the Ultimate 3 only if you already wanted that stick.