Replying to OP and the author with the absolutely wacky controller input behavior of the Xbox Series X|S controller under macOS Big Sur.
All of the inputs appear to behave as expected and push either analog sticks or buttons. Except for the Analog Triggers, which appear to do nothing under A Short Hike's input detector.
Worse still is the digital pad, which does weird things. It appears to be fed to A Short Hike under its distributed version of Unity as two analog axes, A4 and A5.
The default state of the D-pad is A4 centered, A5 negative.
Pressing the pad up: A4 positive, A5 negative.
To the upper left: A4 centered, A5 centered.
To the left: A4 negative, A5 negative.
To the lower left: A4 negative, A5 centered.
To the bottom: A4 negative, A5 positive.
To the bottom right: A4 centered, A5 positive.
To the right: A4 positive, A5 positive.
To the top right: A4 positive, A5 centered.
The unpressed state of A5 being negative causes the controller input to break analog presses. The confusing mapping of the d-pad breaks it period.