VKB Gladiator NXT EVO Review

The Gladiator NXT EVOs have been the best upgrade to my Star Citizen experience hands down. Most of my followers play Star Citizen and let me just tell you — internet ships that you can buy in-game are a poor investment compared to something like this. If you're a Space Marshal or higher and you're not rocking NXTs or better, you might want to check your priorities. While they aren't perfect, they stand as the best buying option for anyone looking for joysticks.

After using the VKB Gladiator NXTs for almost two years, I can see why they are the most popular premium stick in the Star Citizen community. They are relatively affordable, have a ton of bindable buttons and do-dads, can be customized to your liking, and have excellent build quality for the price.

The Standard features a lockable twist or Z-Axis. You can lock it by adding an included screw to the hole at the base of the stick. VKB uses a contactless MaRS sensor for the twist action — this gives much higher sensitivity and accuracy compared to a standard potentiometer.

The stick has one dual-action trigger: pulling halfway is one button, pulling fully is another. I use this to separate my fire groups — ballistics from energy. Pulling this in has a satisfying click on the first stage and a smaller, less audible click on the last. For hats, the standard comes with three 4-way with center-push hat switches. These feel sturdy without rattle and give enough feedback so you always know what you've pressed.

There are 4 buttons at positions A2, B1, C1, and D1, plus programmable Red and RGB LEDs. And finally, two interchangeable palm rests for a total of 3 adjustable sizes. Personally, I find the built-in palm rest perfect for slightly larger than average hands — though a common community complaint is that even these can be uncomfortable for bigger hands.

The Premium grip adds on top of the Standard: a rapid-fire trigger above the dual-stage with up and down inputs, the C1 thumb button is replaced by a 4-way hat with center push (4 more binds), and an 8-way Analog Mini Stick with center push that toggles between analog and hat mode.

The verdict? Buy the premiums. Star Citizen has a massive library of bindings. The more buttons you have, the more actions you can take without lifting your hands — no modifier software needed. When I set up my premium bindings I used every single button. If you start with standards and want to upgrade later, VKB sells an upgrade kit, but it's $40 per stick plus shipping. Spend the extra $30 per stick upfront and never look back.

The base is identical across Standard, Premium, left, and right variants. On top: F1–F3 buttons. Below that: an auto-centering three-position switch (useful for door toggles). On the right side: an encoder wheel that fires repeated button presses as you scroll — great for countermeasure count. And my personal favorite: the throttle wheel. I use it for the Acceleration Limiter in Star Citizen, which makes precision landings and mining dramatically easier. Fair warning — if this wheel ends up fully forward and bound to thrust, your ship won't leave the pad and you'll spend an embarrassing amount of time wondering why.

Remove four screws from the steel baseplate and you're inside. The base is made from industrial-grade ABS plastic — lightweight, durable, and the right call for a mid-range stick.

You get three interchangeable spring weights: 20# installed, 30# (stiff) and 10# (soft) included, plus six spares. Those spares matter — I snapped a spring during live combat on Twitch. Fixed it before my ship finished quantuming from Hurston to Crusader. Start-to-finish. That's the kind of user-serviceability VKB built in.

The dry clutches are the crown jewel for customization: two for the Y-Axis, one for the X. I run my left stick loose on X and firm on Y for a throttle-like feel, and my right stick as loose as possible. You can even remove the Y-axis spring entirely for a true throttle axis.

New to the EVOs: ball bearings in the gimbal (noticeable improvement), a glass-fiber-reinforced plastic gimbal, a 32-bit ARM controller for expanded GNX system support, and an X-Axis lock plate for switching between Star Citizen and games like DCS.

All-plastic base means things can potentially break — though at this price point, asking for more is unreasonable. Step up to the Gunfighters if that's a dealbreaker.

VKBConfig software is genuinely overwhelming — it reads like an internal engineering tool that was reluctantly made public. They do have YouTube tutorials that help, but I personally avoid going deep into it because it feels like I could break something and have to factory reset.

No printed manual. You get a quick-start guide with a QR code to YouTube setup videos. That's it. Not the end of the world, but not ideal.

And for bigger hands: it's a real complaint you'll find across the community. The ergonomics favor medium-sized hands.

So who are these sticks for? Almost everyone. I ran Thrustmaster T16000Ms for two years before upgrading — they never broke, but four buttons and one hat per stick in Star Citizen is a genuinely painful limitation. The VKB NXT EVOs solve that completely.

On the higher end, VKBs Gunfighters and VIRPIL's lineup exist, but they're more than twice the price. My standard answer when people ask whether to stretch their budget for VKBs or go cheaper: if you can flex to include them, do it — even if it means saving up a bit longer. The T16000M is still a reasonable starter stick if the NXTs are truly out of reach. The Logitech 3D Pro? Avoid it.

The NXT EVOs are the right stick for 95% of Star Citizen pilots. Get the premiums, get a decent mounting solution, and never look back.