Drakong's Attack on Titan Blind Boxes Hide Working Mini Gamepads
The blind box economy has finally reached the controller drawer. Hyperkin’s Drakong brand is taking pre-orders on a line of Attack on Titan PixelByte controllers — seven randomized mini gamepads, each wrapped in Survey Corps colors and dangling a chibi keychain. At $24.99 a pop, you’re not paying for a wall hanger. These are fully functional wireless pads with a D-pad, ABXY, shoulder buttons, a Turbo button, and up to 12 hours of battery life.
Drakong hasn’t announced a release date yet, so the only way to guarantee a set is to pre-order now. The real appeal for handheld players is the size: a controller small enough to live on a keychain, but capable enough for a quick retro session on Switch Online — the same pocket-friendly philosophy behind Hyperkin’s retro SupaBoy colorways.
Dopamine or D-pad? The Blind Box Math
Blind boxes are a lottery, and Drakong is leaning into the odds. There are seven designs, with the scary Titan variant sitting at 1:30 odds as the ‘ultra rare’ pull. If you’re a collector with no patience for duplicate Eren faces, the full set pre-order costs $149.99, and Drakong will replace any duplicate you get. That’s a pro-consumer policy worth noting for anyone who has been burned by figure blind boxes.
At $149.99 for seven controllers, you’re effectively paying $21.43 per pad — a modest discount over the single-box price, and not far from what you’d pay for a full-size 8BitDo Ultimate 2C. But the real question for handheld players isn’t rarity; it’s whether a keychain-sized controller is actually usable. At this size, you’re not replacing your main pad, but for a quick pick-up-and-play session on Switch Online NES titles or a bit of emulation on a Steam Deck, it’s the kind of thing you forget is in your pocket until you need it.
Productivity Mode Is the Unexpected Handheld Flex
The official product page mentions a ‘Productivity mode’ that lets you use the pad to take photos on your phone, scroll teleprompters, and change presentation slides. That’s an odd flex for a licensed anime controller, but it underscores the practicality of a tiny, always-on Bluetooth gamepad. For handheld gamers, this is the same appeal as a compact remote for media playback — you don’t need a full controller just to advance a slide or skip a scene.
I’ve spent plenty of time with CRKD’s ATOM, a similarly-sized pad CRKD ATOM on Amazon, and it lives on my keyring for exactly this reason. USB-C charging and a 12-hour battery mean it’ll outlast your actual gaming session, and a built-in Turbo button makes it genuinely useful for retro shooters and grinding-heavy RPGs. The lack of a confirmed release date is the only hangup, but the fact that these are real controllers rather than display-only plastic is enough to justify the gamble if you’re an AoT fan. Just don’t expect it to replace your primary pad — this is a companion piece, not a savior.