Razer Wolverine V3 Pro Wireless Controller – Review

From the early days of competitive gaming, players have shown that skills can get you so far, and that the right tools can provide that additional edge. Which means there will always be a demand for peripherals to aid the aspiring gaming professional, whether it’s for traversing the outskirts of an airport in a battle royale in Call of Duty: Warzone, or fighting off swarms of undemocratic bugs alongside your fellow super soldiers in Helldivers 2. The Razer Wolverine V3 Pro is Razer’s third entry into their peripheral lineup made for the Xbox, and it comes with improvements to level up your game, as well as a list of significant caveats that cannot be ignored.

What most gamers want out of a pro controller is customizability and Razer has done the bare minimum by providing 2 replaceable thumbstick caps – the tall concave and short convex, a USB type A to Type C cable, and a 2.4Ghz USB Type A dongle, all of which is presented in a nice carrying case. The limited accessories that come with the Wolverine V3 Pro will have gamers questioning its price point of S$299, especially when compared to the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, which comes packaged with more options and accessories, including an additional D-pad, four thumbsticks of different sizes, a charging dock with USB-C cable , a thumbstick adjustment tool and a sed of 4 pedals for the additional inputs at the back of the controller, all for the slightly cheaper price of S$254.90, Where it trumps the Elite is that the Wolverine V3 Pro comes with six additional input buttons, which is two more than the Elite Series 2. 

The Wolverine V3 Pro’s design follows the current Xbox controller button layout, with the Share Button and Function button further down, right between the 8 Mecha-Tactile 8-way floating D-pad, and with the Menu and View buttons placed in the same spot at that on the Xbox Wireless Controller. It also has six additional buttons, two are located at the top named  M1 and M2 while four more buttons, M3 through to M6, are located at the back of the controller. Similar to the Wolverine V2 Pro, the weight is concentrated on the centre of the unit and when coupled with its textured grips, the Wolverine V3 Pro feels extremely comfortable in hand. But you’re going to need to get used to the placement of the four additional programmable buttons at the back. In the middle of a frenetic battle, you may find yourself accidentally hitting one or several of the Multi-Function Mouse Click back paddles at the rear, because they don’t require much pressure to trigger an input. Having to develop the muscle memory to not hit those buttons will inevitably be part of your new gaming approach. 

Haptic feedback is always welcomed and here, it feels accurate and punchy irregardless of the game, weapon or action you’re inputting. Though similar to the haptic feedback found in your standard Xbox controller, one can rest easy that the Wolverine V3 Pro does not suffer the issue of inaccurate and off-timed haptic feedback issues that some other third-party controllers do.

Surprisingly enough, the joysticks do suffer from minimal to severe stick drift on 0 deadzone right out of the box, even though they are hall effect analog thumbsticks. In the review unit we had, the right thumbstick drifted slightly to the left and we had to find a way to manually recalibrate it, even though there is no official guide on how to manually recalibrate them. What there are, are community tips and fixes for it from YouTube. To enter manual calibration, you would need to plug in your controller into your PC and use a website like hardwaretester.com that could help you view the directional inputs of the controller and thumbsticks. Press Menu, View and the Xbox buttons together till the light at the centre of the controller flashes repeatedly. Hold the thumbstick exactly where you’d like the centre point to be and hit the Y input and Down on the D-pad to save that calibration option. The drawback of using hardwaretester.com is that it offers no visual cues for you to see exactly where you are setting your new centre-point, so some estimation is required.

However, Razer picked up on the stick drifting issues throughout the community and released a firmware update recently to alleviate that so it no longer suffers from any issues for now. It is good to know that Razer listens to its community and issues out fixes as and when they are needed, but having no issues out of the box will always be the best case scenario.

Once calibrated, the unit plays like a dream especially in games like Call Of Duty that require precise and quick crosshair placement in an extremely fast-paced environment.  If stick drift happens to occur in time or the dead zone is not within your preference you can recalibrate the joysticks via the Razer Controller Setup For Xbox app.

The LT and RT buttons also have the added option of changing input speeds via the Trigger stop switches, going from a full to half press for quicker inputs. We usually leave them locked because speed is the name of the game, and having the feel of a mouse’s click on a controller is truly the best of both worlds.

The 8 way floating D-pad on the Wolverine V3 Pro may feel stiff for people used to the more easily maneuverable D-pad on the V2, but this is up to user preference and there is no way to adjust the sensitivity and feel of it. However it is more than serviceable when calling down killstreaks and bringing up equipment wheels. 

Sadly, while the back paddles are extremely sensitive, and the M1 and M2 buttons require way too much effort to press down and register the input, whereas the M3 to M6 buttons require way too little, so it makes for a full hand workout of remembering how much pressure one should exert for different inputs. We found our hands feeling a lot more strained and tired after an hour of playing Helldivers 2 with programmed inputs, which is something that the basic Xbox Controller could only accomplish after several hours.

There is also a curious issue with the audio jack on the unit where if you were to plug in a headset, the default volume would be lowered for some unknown reason that we couldn’t identify, so unless you intend to game in lower volume, plugging your earphones into your PC or TV would be for the best. 

Through the Razer Controller Setup For Xbox application, you will be able to remap the entire controller to your liking, which includes adding the Sensitivity Clutch inputs that significantly reduces the DPI of your analog sticks. You can also adjust the sensitivity of the analog sticks by selecting three icons and adjusting it according to what you are comfortable with, similar to the Wolverine V2 Pro. 

Compared to other pro controllers out there, like the Nacon Revolution 5 Pro Controller and the Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller which provide more options and fewer issues, the Wolverine V3 Pro needs more work to achieve the level of serviceability and comfort, especially with its asking price. 

All in all, Razer’s latest is a great looking minimalist controller that seeks to improve the overall performance of its predecessor, excelling with its quick inputs and fast trigger responses, but only to be let down by certain design choices that would leave gamers looking elsewhere for their pro fix. 

Zinho De Costa

Abandon Reason Know Only War! Zinho is a shooter fanatic still waiting for direct sequels to Black (2006) and Star Wars: Republic Commandos. He also truly believes that the Warhammer 40K universe can take on any franchise and destroy them. To think any different is heresy and punishable by Exterminatus.