My favorite use of back buttons is in games where there’s long, pretty, treks of exploration. From Monster Hunter: World to Red Dead Redemption and more, I always set up a back binding to an auto-walk.

Press and hold to toggle, adjust the timing to something a little longer than normal, and revel in stoned pleasure at the sprawling landscapes while you pack another bowl without losing time towards your next destination. It’s awesome! If the game allows, you can set up sprinting this way too even for those pesky tap to run ones (looking at you RDR).

The press and hold to toggle is important because it allows me to keep the button bound to a roll, which is often nice for games like Monster Hunter where I can keep my fingers on important camera control and direction/attack inputs while keeping a getaway button available

Depending on the game, R1 and L1, and other times just the usual ABXY with some per game adjustments.

I’ve only used them in Prey

Clones of face buttons.

Discord Push-to-Talk.

In Factorio the keyboard modifiers (alt, ctrl) are back there.

I’ll use it with some emulators to trigger the menu bar so I can adjust settings.

I used it in fallout 4 to zoom since the pop it text was so small.

I used it a bit for save states and fast forwarding at one point too.

Depends on the game a lot.
Sometimes it’s just ABXY buttons where I don’t wanna move my thumb off the right joystick.
Sometimes, one paddle activates a layer shift to have more mappings.
Like if a game has more controls than you could fit, layers can help extend the possibilities and paddles area decent way of activating them.
If a game is heavy on QTEs, like spam X really fast to do something, I might just map a paddle to enable a layer shift that turbo spams the other button.

Typically L1/R1 shoulder buttons or L3/R3 stick click buttons since those are difficult for me. The rear L4/R4 ones are easier to use. Depends on the game and which I am using the most.

R5 I frequently map to take screenshots depending on the game. Except in emulators R5 is fast forward. The rest of emulator settings are a left touchpad menu that I set up almost identically visually for all emulators as possible so it’s easier for me to hop between systems. L5 gets used the least.

For more complex games, typically older ones where I have to get super creative (like Sacred 2), I use the back buttons totally differently as gameplay needs it and as is comfortable.

Sometimes I find the custom control tinkering as much fun as the game. Trying to find a setup that works for me, tweaking as I go for the first few hours of gameplay, and eventually I save as a template with detailed info in it so I never lose it. I use templates for saving because the other save options are less reliable.

I often at least map two of them to joystick buttons, which or for example used to lock targets in many 3D games.

Pressing the real joystick buttons usually hurt my thumbs so bad so I love this feature 👍

The only time I ever use them is by accident.

bottom left is crouch, bottom right is jump. I use the same bindings with my modded dualsense.

I actually bind the top two as clones of the bumpers, Maybe I just have small hands and that’s why I’ve always liked PlayStation controllers more? But the bumpers on the Deck feel like a reach and not somewhere to comfortably rest your fingers on.

For the other two it’s normally duck & jump, or some button you have to regularly hold down while doing other things.

I think I have only used them for a single thing, in an emulator, to preform designated emulator functions like toggling full screen.

Otherwise I do not use them.

i use mine a lot. for WoW I have them set to scroll wheel in and out, auto run and mount

for other games I tend to use them for combo button presses. or set up specific layer commands with them.

Modded Stardew Valley - mod keybinds are on back buttons and virtual menus.

Helldivers 2 - stim binded to a left back button.

Hades - binded R3 / Reload to a back button.

Honestly, I don’t. They don’t do anything and I only click them while bored on waiting screens.

Most frequent uses?

1. Voice typing when using decky dictation if I’m in web browser, or text chatting in Discord or an MMO or something.

2. Alternate inputs for stick-click functions, since I very much dislike clicking the sticks.