Xenia Emulator Keyboard — Controls

Mastering Xenia Emulator Keyboard Controls: The Ultimate Setup Guide

The Xbox 360 era produced some of the most iconic games in history—from Red Dead Redemption to Halo 3 and Fable II. For PC gamers who want to revisit these classics, Xenia has emerged as the leading Xbox 360 emulator. However, one of the first hurdles new users face is understanding and configuring Xenia emulator keyboard controls.

In recent builds, you can manually map keys by editing the emulator's configuration file. Locate Config File : Navigate to Documents\Xenia (or your root folder if using "portable" mode) and open xenia.config.toml xenia-canary.config.toml for the Canary version) in a text editor like Notepad. Enable Keyboard : Look for the keyboard_mode setting and set it to Map Controls : Scroll to the [HID.WinKey] xenia emulator keyboard controls

Right Analog Stick:

[keyboard]
keyboard_key_A = "key_a"
keyboard_key_B = "key_b"
# ... and so on

section. To use keys other than standard letters or numbers, you must enter their Virtual-Key Codes in hex format (e.g., keybind_dpad_down = "0x28" Find a full list of codes on the official Microsoft Virtual-Key Codes page Save and Restart section

If you own a modern Xbox One, Series X|S, or PlayStation controller, use that via USB or Bluetooth—Xenia will detect it instantly with zero configuration. But if you are a keyboard purist, the x360ce method transforms Xenia into a surprisingly playable experience. or PlayStation controller

Note: Mouse buttons (MouseLeft, MouseRight, MouseMiddle) may require enabling mouse_input = true in the config or using a Xenia build with mouse support enabled.

That enables the keyboard. But to remap keys, you need to add a second line: keyboard_mapping.