Razer Wolverine V3 Pro review – undeniable quality hampered by price

The Razer Wolverine V3 Professional is a unbelievable Elite-style controller for Xbox and PC, specializing in responsiveness and luxury in hand. Designed in collaboration with 24-time Halo champion Eric “Snip3down” Wrona, this new Wolverine is touted as real professional-grade gear, and it’s exhausting to argue with the outcomes.

I discover the Razer Wolverine V3 Professional to be probably the greatest PC controllers available on the market proper now, and regardless of its eye-watering worth, there’s loads of worth on show to justify the associated fee. The feel and appear of the controller are nice, and the pure positioning of its again paddles instantly received me over, however do you have to ditch your commonplace gamepad in favor of this expensive professional various?

Specs

Options

The Razer Wolverine V3 Professional is a wi-fi Xbox and PC controller able to as much as 1,000Hz polling when wired. Razer takes classes realized by making quite a lot of aggressive gaming mice and applies the learnings to the Wolverine V3 Professional. This ends in a brilliant slick design, detailed customization choices, and tremendous responsive efficiency.

The Wolverine V3 Professional has Corridor Impact joysticks and Mecha-Tacticle switches in its ABXY face buttons, together with an eight-way D-pad. Twin-mode triggers may undertake a brief mouse-click fashion activation alongside a normal lengthy pull activation that feels a lot smoother. The 4 rear paddles are textured for improved grip, plus the shoulder-mounted M1 and M2 buttons don’t protrude a lot that they smash the look of the controller, however can nonetheless be positioned simply with out having to look down.

There’s no hiding the influences of gaming mice on the Wolverine V3 Professional, but it surely’s actually not a foul factor as a result of Razer is understood for making a number of the finest gaming mice and this expertise has transferred over flawlessly. This determination to boldly introduce mouse-like fell and options give gamers the sensation of full management and a fast responsiveness.

As a wi-fi controller, the Razer Wolverine V3 Professional additionally comes with a chargeable battery, marketed as providing “about 20 hours” of play, though that is underneath reasonably strict circumstances. The gamepad additionally comes with a protecting cloth carry case, a set of other thumbsticks, a 10ft USB A to C charging cable, and the hyperspeed wi-fi dongle. All these extras add significantly to the worth of a premium controller like this however a extra barebones model with none of those that saves you $20-$50 would in all probability tempt a whole lot of patrons.

Design

The design of Razer’s Wolverine V3 Professional might be assessed on two fronts. At face worth, the V3 Professional appears like simply one other premium Xbox controller, which isn’t essentially a unfavorable, however in describing it as such, you might have a right away expectation that involves thoughts. It’s an asymmetrical ABXY structure with an Xbox brand, view, menu, and share buttons, in addition to a D-pad. On high of this, you might have the 4 rear paddles and extra two top-mounted inputs.

When trying on the Wolverine V3 Professional on a a lot deeper stage, and after having held it in my arms for numerous hours throughout testing, I’m crammed with reward for each side of its design and structure. First, consideration is given to each claw and commonplace grips, that are accommodated utilizing well-positioned rear paddles and top-mounted M1 and M2 inputs.

These are nothing new, and I don’t need to attempt to make out as such, however so few controllers make the most of each types so nicely. The M1 and M2 inputs are fastidiously positioned subsequent to the LB/LT and RB/RT buttons in order that they by no means intrude if you happen to’re adopting a normal grip, however in case you are a claw-style participant, they’re easy to achieve without having to stretch and danger messing up your movement.

As for the paddles, they’re located loads decrease on the handles, that means they sit extra naturally in your two center fingers. Fortunately, they aren’t so delicate that you simply’ll be continually setting them off, an issue I’ve discovered with many alternate options relationship again to the unique Elite controller. Add in two set off locks positioned on the rear of the controller, and all of it provides as much as create what’s my favourite and most comfy controller expertise up to now.

Efficiency

I put the Wolverine V3 Professional by way of its paces in Madden 25, Forza Motorsport 8, and Name of Responsibility: Warzone to get a really feel for the way these video games felt each with out-of-the-box settings and after a while spent customizing inputs through the Razer software program on PC.

The efficiency of the Wolverine V3 Professional is at its finest if you tinker with settings to accommodate the fashion of sport you’re enjoying, as I did for my whole time testing the controller. When enjoying a sport like Madden, I tweaked the thumbstick sensitivity to be diverse, with the left stick being extra delicate whereas the fitting stick was much less so. This helped make my directional inputs far snappier whereas permitting me to cut back the danger of errors with the fitting stick similar to a poorly timed juke with my working again.

In Forza, it’s much like the stick sensitivity scenario, however in racing video games, again paddles develop into the MVP for me. Assigning my gear shifts to those inputs permits me to keep up full management of a car and preserve my thumbs regular as they management the automobile and my digicam view.

Lastly, in Warzone and different shooters, the thumbstick lifeless zones are at their most delicate as a result of any delay in aiming might be the distinction between life and dying (within the sport). Whereas your response instances additionally play a serious position, if you happen to can take away the added milliseconds of needing your controller to hit its energetic zone and reply, it’s an enormous benefit. Additionally, I just like the controller haptics turned as much as 11, or on this case, six, as I need to have the ability to really feel each motion and shot to completely immerse myself in firefights. The round thumbstick profile additionally is available in helpful right here because it smooths out the omnidirectional actions reasonably than sticking to the clunkier really feel of an eight-direction system.

All through all my testing, I felt in full management of how the Wolverine V3 Professional performs, and it did every thing I requested of it with none challenge. It’s this stage of customization that creates the skilled really feel, and the structure of the Razer Controller app is much from intimidating, even when I used to be initially confused as to why the controller didn’t simply use Synapse like all different Razer PC equipment.

Always, the Wolverine V3 Professional felt responsive, however when switching over to wired mode and enabling the 1,000Hz polling, I admittedly anticipated extra however was left underwhelmed. Having examined numerous mice and seeing the distinction {that a} soar between 1,000Hz and 4,000Hz could make, I used to be excited to see how the Wolverine V3 Professional may fare reporting in at 4 instances its 250Hz wi-fi fee. The distinction in gameplay felt marginal with solely the thumbstick responsiveness seeming to profit, and whereas it’s nonetheless a step ahead for controllers, I wouldn’t let it scare you away from carrying on with wi-fi play for now.

On its battery life, the Wolverine V3 Professional can go for over 20 hours of fixed use, however provided that you flip off the Chroma RGB and cut back the haptic suggestions to zero. In any other case, the standard battery life, from a full cost, will sit within the 10-15 hour vary, relying on what settings you’re utilizing. That’s a contact on the low aspect, with the likes of the Xbox Elite controller boasting as much as 40 hours of battery life, although it’s nonetheless lengthy sufficient for a protected a number of day of gaming between costs.

Going from flat to full cost took simply shy of three hours when left alone, however the wired play means you don’t have to fret about having sufficient juice to play, supplied you might have a spare USB port to cost when you play.

Verdict

All in all, the Razer Wolverine V3 Professional delivers superfast wired responsiveness and a snug really feel that works nicely for normal and claw grips. The construct high quality is unbelievable, as you need to count on given the value tag, however general the Wolverine V3 Professional does little or no to innovate within the controller market.

As an alternative, the V3 Professional is the right marriage of a number of premium options, all introduced collectively within the ultimate shell for PC and Xbox avid gamers. It’s exhausting to justify the associated fee when a less expensive, wired model is offered for half the value – notably if you happen to’re solely a PC participant. Nevertheless, if you happen to take your gaming significantly, the expansive customization provides a fine-tuned expertise that might genuinely give you an edge over the competitors.

Worth

The Razer Wolverine V3 Professional has an MSRP of $199.99 (£199.99) and is offered from the Razer retailer and retailers similar to Amazon, from August 28, 2024. There’s no sugarcoating the value. It’s costly even in comparison with different premium controllers such because the Scuf Intuition and Xbox Elite Collection 2.

It’s actually in the direction of the very restrict of what I’d be keen to pay for a controller personally, however the worth of the package deal as a complete is boosted by the inclusion of all these extras within the field and the presence of Corridor Impact thumbsticks, which the above rivals lack.

Alternate options

Large Large Received Rainbow Professional 2

The Rainbow Professional 2 is a real various to the Wolverine V3 Professional, particularly when it prices a fraction of the value. I’ll concede that the Wolverine feels higher in hand, and the customization choices eclipse that of the Rainbow Professional 2, but when funds is a significant factor in your determination, and you’ll deal with the reasonably garish design, it’s a viable choice to contemplate.