Tiny pixel animals are hiding in the keycaps, and a winding path runs right across the board. The Forest Wonder edition turns 8BitDo’s Retro 87 keyboard and Retro R8 mouse into a miniature woodland, and the pair just rolled out across the UK and Europe.
Under the artwork sits familiar hardware with a real spec sheet, so this isn’t a toy with a cute paint job. You get hot-swappable switches, three ways to connect and a mouse dock that also works as a signal extender for your desk. Sold separately, never as a bundle.
Retro 87 Mechanical Keyboard, Forest Wonder
87 keys · Core Green tactile switches · Hot-swappable PCB
Price: $119.99
Where to buy: Buy at 8BitDo
The keyboard is a tenkeyless board with a forest on it
The Retro 87 packs 87 keys into a top-mount frame. Dye-sublimation PBT keycaps carry the pixel artwork, so the little creatures and leaves sit in the plastic rather than on top of it, and they won’t fade under your fingertips by spring.
No number pad, because that space belongs to your mouse.
Your mouse hand gets the extra room instead, and the board still measures 376.6 by 169.6 by 46.8mm with a solid 1,100g heft that keeps it planted during long sessions at home.
Eight RGB lighting modes glow through the board, and 8BitDo pitches the look as fireflies flickering through a quiet forest at night. Cheesy on paper. It lands in person, mostly because the greens stay muted instead of going full gamer rainbow across your whole setup.
An independent control panel handles connections, volume and button mapping without a trip into software, and a dedicated Xbox button opens Game Bar on Windows with one press. Two oversized Super Buttons sit alongside the board as a separate piece. You can program them for macros or map them on the fly with no software at all. Pricier boards still skip that trick.
Switches you can pull and a battery that lasts weeks
The Core Green tactile switches come from a collaboration with Kailh, and the PCB underneath is hot-swappable. You pull a switch and drop a new one in. No soldering iron, no drama, and no sending the board back because one key started feeling scratchy on a Tuesday.
Battery life is the quiet flex here, honestly. The 4,000mAh cell runs 280 hours over the 2.4G connection and 300 hours over Bluetooth, and a charge takes four to eight hours through USB.
Bluetooth LE 5.3, 2.4G wireless and wired USB cover the connection options, and a magnetic compartment under the board stores the adapter so it stops vanishing into drawers. Compatibility needs one clear line, because the Xbox badge invites the wrong assumption for a lot of buyers.
The set is officially licensed by Xbox, and it runs on Windows 10 and Android 9.0 or later. Your console isn’t on that list. The Xbox button talks to Game Bar on a PC, not to a Series X across the room. Buy it as PC gear with a license, not as console gear with a keyboard attached.
The mouse gets a dock that earns its footprint
The Retro R8 mouse weighs 77g and runs a PAW 3395 sensor with six DPI levels you can adjust in the software. Four programmable side buttons handle your shortcuts.
The artwork matches the keyboard exactly, pixel for pixel. The HUANO micro switches are rated for 100 million clicks, and left-hand and right-hand modes both sit in the settings, which lefties rarely get from a themed mouse at any price. You also get polling that tops out at 8,000Hz wired and 4,000Hz over 2.4G, while Bluetooth sits at 125Hz for the long-haul days when battery beats speed.
Its charging dock is the smartest part of the set, full stop. The dock charges the 450mAh battery and stores the 2.4G adapter inside its body. It also extends the wireless signal while it sits there, so the connection stays strong across a wide desk. Battery life runs 100 hours on Bluetooth and between 26 and 105 hours on 2.4G depending on the polling rate you pick, and a full charge takes two and a half hours.
8BitDo Ultimate Software on PC handles the button mapping and sensitivity tuning for both pieces, so one app runs the whole desk setup. One dock, three jobs. One app, zero dongle juggling.
Retro R8 Mouse, Forest Wonder
PAW 3395 sensor · Six DPI levels · Charging dock with signal extension
Price: $59.99
Where to buy: Buy at 8BitDo
Buy it if your desk could use some joy and you type on Windows all day, because the hardware under the artwork is genuinely solid for the money. Skip it if you wanted console gear in disguise. The full set runs $179.98 together, and your group chat will have opinions about the tiny animals either way.
