At first blush, the Nacon Revolution X Unlimited might look like ‘just’ another pro-grade Xbox controller to rival Microsoft’s oft-recommended Elite Series 2, but the inclusion of Hall Effect sticks, a screen and some unique PC features could help it become one best PC controllers we’ve tested. That said, it does have its weak points too – and an eye-watering asking price. Here’s what I’ve discovered after a couple of weeks of testing versus the Elite Series 2 and Scuf Instinct Pro, a top third-party option.
In terms of look and feel, the Revolution X Unlimited is quite a hefty beast, coming with a fair bit more in terms of weight against the Xbox Elite Series 2 and my trusty Scuf Instinct Pro. It also feels wider in-hand, with chunkier grips at the bottom, but with its soft-touch plastic and rubberised portions, is comfortable in hand.
If you want to make this controller any heavier, then there are removable panels on the underside of the grips where you can add weights in, if you so choose. It’s like the old Logitech G502 Hero mouse. The thumbsticks are also swappable with some concave options in the excellent hard carry case, as well as some taller options if you’d prefer them to the textured convex ones already present, and a more traditional-looking D-Pad.
The layout here is familiar, with a traditional Xbox array of buttons with diagonally opposing analog sticks, a D-Pad and ABXY buttons in the top right corners. The top side is home to shoulder buttons and triggers, as well as a pair of new, bright-green buttons labelled S1 and S2. There are two other sets on the back side, too, if you want even more control, as well as lockable triggers.
The Revolution X Unlimited also has a handy LCD screen to give you ways and means of configuring the controller without delving into any software. You can remap buttons, or enable different profiles right from the LCD, and easily remap any of the controls in a matter of seconds. The screen also allows you to control pairing over Bluetooth or the bundled 2.4GHz receiver (and it works plug and play with Xbox or PC in my experience), and even pair up a wireless headset with Bluetooth, too.
You can also swap between the controller’s profiles, with two noteworthy additions that pro folks will likely want to take advantage of. The Revolution X Unlimited’s PC profile reduces latency when connected to a PC by wire, and even enables keyboard shortcuts for the remappable rear and top buttons, while its Shooter Pro mode removes the stick deadzone for even more precise inputs in FPS games – it felt excellent in Call Of Duty Black Ops 6, even if I’ve never been the strongest in FPS titles.
One of the big advantages of this Nacon controller over the veteran Xbox Elite Series 2 is that the triggers and analog sticks are all Hall Effect, a growing trend in the controller space. These magnetic sensors don’t lose accuracy over time to the same degree as the potentiometers used otherwise, salving some of the most common reliability concerns like stick drift. They also have the potential to be more accurate and responsive with narrower deadzones, though this depends on the quality of the sensors and how they’re implemented within the rest of the controller.
The rumble on the Revolution X Unlimited is quite powerful and arguably gives more feedback than my trusty Scuf Instinct Pro does, lending itself to have a more immersive quality when playing everything from Forza Horizon 5 to Hitman 3. The heavier rumble was more noticeable in the former, giving vehicles a little more punch when driving in races or scything through traffic. It also made crashes that bit more impactful, especially when playing BeamNG Drive on PC, where sometimes it is just fun to smash a car into a wall to make me feel better.
The lockable triggers provide a bit more of a PC-like experience in console shooters, reducing the travel distance for firing a gun when I was playing through some good-old heists in GTA Online, or when I got into a spot of bother against some guards in Hitman 3 – sometimes it is nice to attempt a good-old ‘kill everyone’ challenge on a New York bank.
Having the ability to remap the controller’s shortcut buttons on the fly is a godsend for changing controls for more familiar positions – for instance, I remapped the shift up and down buttons in Forza Horizon 5 to the S3 and S4 buttons on the rear of the controller to make it a little more familiar to using a paddle shifter on a proper wheel. The buttons were easily accessible with my ring fingers on both hands, with responsive inputs.
In fact, I felt responsive inputs on all of the Revolution X Unlimited’s buttons, with them seeming to use tactile microswitches. In the event I needed to mash buttons for running in Hitman or GTA Online, I was suitably impressed with the feedback under finger.
Software control, available in Windows only, is pretty good, too. It gives you a convenient means of remapping buttons with a little more in the way of options beyond the buttons on the controller. You can also remap controllers to a keyboard key, as well as to a movement of the controller’s gyroscope, as well as create up to four profiles with their own remaps or lighting effects that can be selected on the controller itself.
Nacon says the Revolution X Unlimited will last for at least 10 hours on a charge, which means its battery life isn’t as strong as rivals including the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro and the Xbox Elite Series 2, which will last up to forty hours. During my couple of weeks with the controller, I noticed the endurance of the controller to match Nacon’s claimed run-time – you will be charging it up a lot more often than the competition. At least there is a handy magnetic charging dock provided to keep topping up simple, but it’s a pain if you plan on marathon game sessions or just don’t get in the habit of leaving the controller on the dock each day or two.
At a nominal price of £180/$200, the Revolution X Unlimited costs more than £50/$60 more than Microsoft’s Elite Series 2. That’s far from an insignificant premium, but Nacon does reasonably to justify the extra cost with the huge amount of customisation possible, both physically and with software. The controller also feels excellent in the hand, if a little heavy against key rivals, and responsive in the range of titles I tested thanks to snappy triggers and buttons. And thanks to those Hall Effect sticks, it ought to remain capable well into the future.
If the Elite Series 2 isn’t on your shortlist due to its mixed reputation for reliability, then the Revolution X Unlimited is worthy of consideration. Just make sure you’ve got that charging dock handy.
