The V2 Pro is similar to the Xbox-themed V2 Chroma, aside from some PlayStation-specific inputs, like the touchpad and PS home button. | Image: Razer
PlayStation 5 owners have yet another pricey, customizable wireless controller to consider. Razer’s Wolverine V2 Pro is launching today with PS5 and PC support for $249.99, $50 more than Sony’s DualSense Edge, which is coming in early 2023. The Wolverine V2 Pro includes fewer goodies than the Edge, besides lacking rumble and active triggers. But it has some perks that some people (who can swallow this kind of cost for a controller) might enjoy.
Notably, the Wolverine V2 Pro has an Xbox-style analog stick arrangement, with sticks positioned diagonally instead of being next to each other. Razer’s new controller includes two additional stick caps that can be swapped magnetically: one that’s short and convex and another that’s tall and concave.
In addition to the usual PS-specific color scheme and inputs (including a touchpad, PS home button, and mic mute), the Wolverine V2 Pro has six remappable buttons — one near each side’s shoulder buttons and a total of four back paddles. This is the same macro button layout as you’ll find on its cheaper $149.99 Xbox-themed and wired Wolverine V2 Chroma. However, mapping functions to the Pro’s extra buttons requires connecting the controller via Bluetooth to your iOS or Android phone or tablet, then launching the Razer Controller app. (Puzzlingly, it can’t actually control games over Bluetooth.) The app allows you to set one of those macro buttons to be a sensitivity clutch, either lowering or increasing the sensitivity of an analog stick while it’s held down.
Image: Razer
The rear of the Wolverine V2 Pro is where you’ll find four programmable back paddles, trigger travel clutches, and switches to toggle between wireless and wired modes for each platform.
It was inevitable that the Wolverine V2 Pro would be compared to Razer’s Wolverine V2 Chroma, as it’s a similar controller in several ways — many of them good. While Razer hasn’t sent a V2 Pro for me to try yet, I expect from using the V2 Chroma that its customizable Chroma RGB LEDs will look nice, and the added grips will feel great. In addition, it has a headphone jack, and its eight-way directional pad is probably an improvement over Sony’s default D-pad. And those switches on the backside of the controller that shorten the travel distance of the triggers might be a game-changer for you.
However, you’ll either love the “mecha-tactile” switches under its buttons or you won’t. They tend to feel more like mouse clicks than your average controller buttons and also promise faster input recognition, but I prefer the feel of the longer travel distance of membrane buttons.
But adding wireless, a new color scheme, and some PlayStation-specific buttons to the V2 Chroma in order to create the V2 Pro doesn’t seem like enough for the additional $100, especially since its price sails above the DualSense Edge’s preorder cost. I wish that it also included swappable D-pads, a hard zip-up case, fleshed-out Bluetooth functionality, and, well, the DualSense’s fantastic haptic actuators.
Razer and PDP’s Victrix might have beaten Sony to store shelves with their respective controllers aimed at enthusiast gamers, though we won’t have to wait much longer to see which of them will be the definitive option for people who own a PlayStation.