Nacon Revolution 5 Professional controller evaluation: Up your sport

Professional controllers have gone from area of interest prospects to broadly desired equipment in the previous couple of years, with choices like Scufs and PlayStation’s personal DualSense Edge changing into extra generally utilized by the day.

That does not imply they’ve turn into any much less premium an choice, although, and Nacon’s Revolution 5 Professional is the newest contender in your money if you wish to improve your aggressive loadout. I have been utilizing it for a few weeks to see the way it stacks up.

Design

Kitted out

Nacon hasn’t minimize any corners on the Revolution 5 Professional – it is a actually absolutely featured professional controller, and you may inform that simply from it.

The controller is available in a white colourway to match the bottom PS5, however I bought the black model for testing – rather a lot stealthier and truly fairly unremarkable at first look.

It is properly constructed out of stable high-quality matte plastic (there is no flex right here), with beautiful rubbery grips round the place your palms relaxation to assist in probably the most aggravating moments of a sport.

The entrance of the controller would not disguise a lot additional performance, though you may swap out the thumbsticks for a variety of choices that come included, and the D-pad additionally has two variants to choose from.

On the again, issues are extra advanced, with a bunch of switches to customize your expertise, together with the choice to shorten the journey distance on both of your triggers.

There are buttons to toggle between your totally different structure profiles, connectivity for various gadgets and quantity controls for once you join a headset to the controller (which you are able to do through Bluetooth if desired).

Lastly, on both sides, the rubbery grip could be clicked off to disclose a cavity the place included weights could be secured to change how the controller feels in your hand – a really good contact.

The Revolution 5 Professional additionally comes with a pleasant hard-shell carrying case that has impressively been made smaller than earlier variations to make all of it the better to pack for journey or storage.

A braided charging or connection cable rounds out the package deal, and it is all completed to a extremely top quality – as you’d hope, given it prices almost half as a lot as a PS5 by itself.

Customisation choices

Make it your individual

Customisation is the secret for a professional controller, and the Revolution 5 Professional provides loads of other ways to make it your individual.

These weights are available in a number of variants and are simple to fit in and experiment with, letting you modify the controller’s general hand-feel actually simply, which is nice and never supplied by many opponents.

That very same ease applies to swapping thumbsticks too, and also you additionally get entry to some steel rings to cut back the journey distance in your sticks, one thing that requires slightly extra consideration to note however also can actually assist with controller tuning.

It is good with the ability to swap between journey distances for the triggers, too, though even the shorter choice remains to be not fairly as clicky as a devoted modded controller just like the one I used from Mega Modz recently can provide.

Nonetheless, these are all bodily choices that you could tweak as you want, making it fairly easy to make main adjustments to how the Revolution 5 Professional feels in keeping with your style.

There are additionally 4 additional buttons on the again of the controller case, and these could be remapped at will – one thing that you are able to do utilizing software program in your PC or by simply holding down some buttons.

The latter is useless simple, and I used to be shortly in a position to set them up as I like, with the face buttons mapped to the again in order that my thumbs keep on the stick whereas enjoying.

Button placement is an enormous a part of the success of a professional controller, and the principle two buttons added, S1 and S2, are supreme – central and simply the place my fingertips curl to.

The others are on the grips themselves and are slightly extra awkward to activate – in observe, I discover that I actually use the principle two extra no matter which controller I am on, however Scuf nonetheless makes the very best again buttons I’ve examined, on the Reflex.

Nonetheless, Nacon has performed a really stable job right here and a few folks will probably discover the association utterly excellent. In a really perfect world, you’d be capable of strive one out in a store earlier than committing, although.

Efficiency

Gaming upgraded

In fact, you may’t assess a professional controller by simply it from all angles – you need to soar into video games with it, so I have been operating the Revolution 5 Professional as my fundamental controller for a few weeks.

I play numerous Warzone and Rocket League, two very totally different video games with totally different necessities, and one of many points I’ve had with different professional controllers is that I would like clicky responses for Warzone and throttle management for Rocket League.

Properly, the Revolution 5 Professional aces that check – its triggers work nice for each due to these variable journey distances, and the additional buttons are nice for making my very own management scheme.

I’ve additionally been sampling a bunch of The Finals‘ open beta (which is terrific), and the controller has held as much as each stress check I’ve give you.

There are, nonetheless, some drawbacks to deal with, most of them out of Nacon’s arms due to how Sony offers with third-party controllers.

Firstly, in contrast to a modified DualSense just like the Scuf Reflex, this is not recognised by your PS5 as a standard controller – it wants a dongle, and which means it might’t do some easy issues.

For one, its PS button will not flip the console on, so you may have to try this manually earlier than turning on the controller to maneuver on (a small element however probably an annoying one).

Subsequent, once more as a result of it is not a DualSense, you will not get the haptics that Sony’s personal controller provides. The truth is, in PS5 video games you will not get any haptics or vibration in any respect.

Now, I view this as a controller for aggressive play, fairly than a one-size-fits-all choice just like the DualSense Edge, which works as effectively for informal play as the professional scene. I am unable to see this being a deal-breaker, since you may at all times join your regular DualSense if you wish to play one thing immersive like Alan Wake 2.

Nonetheless, it does imply that you just’re not going to have the ability to consign your outdated controllers to reminiscence, if that issues to you, and it barely tarnishes the in any other case spectacular efficiency of the Revolution 5 Professional.

Verdict

The Revolution 5 Professional is a good new choice for individuals who take their controllers critically, and an important pairing with the PS5 or a high-class PC. It is bought oodles of customisation choices and might actually simply be constructed to really feel impeccable within the hand.

There are a number of usability hiccups that make it probably rather less consumer pleasant in some methods, but when you may get over these minor hurdles it nonetheless has rather a lot to supply as a device for high-level play.