Nacon have now made a few controllers for the PlayStation 4, each has refined the original design, but now the Revolution Unlimited sports a wireless connection, but is that enough to justify the cost?

If you are not aware of what the Revolution series of controllers for PlayStation 4 is, then you are missing out, a simple way to describe is that the Nacon controllers relocate the d-pad and left thumb stick, bringing the PlayStation into line with everyone else, but it is much more than that. The original which I bought when it released, allowed for customisation, but it was a clunky build and honestly, not that great, but it held promise and while I passed on the second release, this one was back on my radar thanks to its ability to play without the cord. Given how controllers have been cordless for a while now from the 1st party makers, any serious controller from a 3rd party maker is going to need to be wireless and while the execution for the Revolution Unlimited is not the most elegant, it serves its purpose well and does it flawlessly.

Comparing the original controller to the Unlimited is quite fun, because you can see where things have improved and its not little things, there are major changes across the board. The d-pad, a core component of most controllers has lost its spongey feel, instead now responding how you would expect it to and as it does on the official controller. It now also sports a more plus sign shape, unlike the rounded attempt from the previous controllers, though it is not quite the same split shape the official one has. The stick themselves feel very similar to that of the original but still have a much firmer resistance, which is something I prefer, if however the sticks have a little to much travel for you, you can swap out the thumbstick grip, going from a concave to convex, but also change the thickness of the stick shaft. Doing that is not something I can see a lot of people doing, but having the option is welcome though.

In addition to the refined sticks, the shoulder buttons have also been given an overhaul, they now have a more solid feel and less travelling distance, making them more inline with the official controller. If there was one thing that the controller does better than the official, that is the sharing and options buttons, on the PlayStation 4 controller from Sony, they are small and tucked away, recessed a little, but on the Unlimited Revolution, they are almost level with the other face buttons and slightly higher than the touch pad. Speaking of the touch pad, it now matches the look of the 1st party controller, with the top part of it, sloping away, unlike how it is fully enclosed on the first attempt. Of course, you can’t talk about the Nacon controllers, without mentioning the programmable buttons on the rear of the controller, the four that are provided are much better than the original, on that one, it was a rock switch, you could push it up or down for a different button, now they are separate ones and fit much nicer under the hand.

Programming the buttons requires a computer and the software, but thankfully, the team at Nacon have learnt and improved the software, it now functions with ease and is understandable, without a degree in computer science. The controller now supports multiple profiles and modes, meaning you can have two distinct sets of options for PlayStation 4 and one for PC, giving you 12 different controller configurations. The final aspect of the controller that I really liked was that the face buttons, X, O and so on, are closer together than on the PlayStation 4 controller, which did take a little adjustment too, but now I feel way more comfortable with them than the original, sadly though it is not all perfect.

In order for the controller to be wireless, on either PlayStation 4 or PC, you can’t hook it up via the regular Bluetooth options, instead you have to use a large grey adaptor and there are no nice things to say about it, its ugly. The adaptor requires no set up on PlayStation 4, you simply plug it in, turn on the controller and wait a moment for it to connect and then you are done, that is it, the seamlessness of it is just surprising, there is no pairing, no needing another controller to set it up, it is plug and play. On PC it works much the same way, you simply plug the adapter in and wait for your computer to install drivers, once read, you simply turn it up, make sure it is in PC mode on the back and you are again good to go. Customising the controller does require you to make use of the included USB-C cable, which you can also use to play with the controller and charge it, at 3m in length it will also give you plenty of room to move away from your platform of choice.

The one part of the controller that I like and also don’t is the volume controls, which are located under the controller and sadly not easy to reach whilst gaming. Adding them to the controller is quite inspired, because I hate having to use the PlayStation 4’s volume controls on the system itself, the problem is there is no clear way to know which button is what, without looking at the controller and I am sure that in time, you will come to learn, the only problem is there is very little space between the volume up button and the profile button and it would be far to easy to hit the wrong one at the wrong time.

Nacon have done some serious work on the controller and if they somehow manage to remove the need for that god ugly grey stick, this would be perfect. The customisable weights, multiple profiles and sticks, makes it for a much easier to use controller and since I started using it, has become my default controller on PlayStation 4 and PC. The controller is a little larger than the original one and that will take some getting used to, as will the weight being at the bottom of it, but there is no denying it is a serious controller and one that is easy to recommend for anyone who wants to be serious about their gaming, or just wants to use a standard style controller on PlayStation.

Hardware supplied by Nacon