When it comes to pro-styled controllers, the Xbox family currently sports an embarrassment of button-filled riches. From their Elite series offerings to top-tier competition from Nacon, Turtle Beach and PowerA, there’s never been a more competitive field. SCUF know a thing or two about competition though, and after years as a well-known figure in esports, they’re releasing one of their most mainstream, most competitively priced controllers, while losing none of their esports-bred edge. The result? The SCUF Valor Pro is one of the best wired controllers of this generation.
The first thing you’ll experience is the feel of the Valor Pro in your hand. It immediately lends you a sense of quality and craftsmanship, with gorgeously firm and weighty tactility. Built from quality black and grey plastics, the soft-touch faceplate feels fantastic under your hand. There’s also comfortable rubberised texturing on the underside of each arm, helping to keep it firmly in place no matter how sweaty the situation might be.
The SCUF Valor Pro’s styling is understated but incredibly cool, with orange highlights around each of the analogue sticks, black camouflage patterning on the shoulder buttons and triggers, and subdued SCUF logos on the faceplate and the top of the controller. The faceplate is magnetic, letting you swap out the analogue stick tops, or customise the controller’s look, with alternate options available from SCUF, which is nice to see, even if it does come at additional cost.
Connectivity comes via the 10ft braided cable, leading from a USB-C socket on the top of the Valor Pro to a USB-A connector at the other end, ensuring that you can game while sat a sensible distance from your TV. While it’s branded for the Xbox family of consoles, it’s also fully compatible with PC, giving it some useful dual utility if you’re a multiplatform household.
The Valor Pro apes the asymmetrical layout of the official Xbox Series X|S pads, and when that’s one of the most comfortable controllers of all time, it makes sense to refine rather than reinvent. They’ve slightly reduced the controller’s size, making it easier to handle, and the resulting shift means that the rear paddles now sit directly beneath your fingers. There’s a host of improvements here that further lift it above its inspiration, not least the overall quality of the buttons and controls.
The Hall Effect analogue sticks feel excellent, both taut and precise, and the box includes a choice of concave and domed tops depending on your preference. I’ve never been particularly sold on domed tops, but it’s nice to have the option. They feel acutely tuned to FPS play, and through many days of Overwatch games they’ve shown their worth time and time again.
Hall Effect sticks are on course to be an industry standard now, but that’s in response to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo’s own controllers not including the magnet-based technology. Where the official controllers can all eventually suffer from stick drift, Hall Effect sticks use magnetic field sensing instead of physical contacts that greatly extends the sticks potential lifespan. It’s impossible to say they’ll never wear out – no one can account for exactly how much Call of Duty you play – but they’ll definitely last a lot longer than the alternatives and drift shouldn’t be a factor.
Those FPS chops are furthered by the inclusion of my favourite trend in controllers – trigger lockouts. The Valor Pro’s versions take things one stop further though, completely altering the function of the trigger from analogue to digital micro switch. I’m not even sure how that’s possible, but in use, it means that your trigger response is as fast as a mouse click. It’ll be music to the ears of PC players who prefer to use a controller despite living in the world of keyboards and mice.
The central face buttons feel quick and solid, though it’s interesting that they’ve gone for membrane switches for the main ABXY buttons, but then the circular D-pad uses micro switches. This feels like the fastest D-pad I’ve ever come across, with that speed further helped by the wired connection. A future update on PC will mean the Valor Pro is rated for a 1000Hz polling rate which, for all you number fans, is very fast. Even without that, the Valor Pro feels super-fast and super-precise on both Xbox and PC. If you’re building on well-honed skills, the SCUF Valor Pro can take you to the next step.
There’s further controls to help you achieve greatness, with four additional paddles sitting beneath your fingertips on the underside of the controller. These are a great size, so you can’t miss them, but there’s a firmness to the P1 and P4 paddles to prevent you from accidentally activating them, which makes them feel strangely satisfying to use.
Meanwhile, the internal P2 and P3 buttons use micro switches, accelerating the Valor Pro’s responsiveness and making every millisecond count. If you’re not a paddle person, the central ones can be blanked out, with covers included in the box, while all of them can be deactivated to prevent any mishaps.
Two unusual additions are the control wheels to the left and right of the 3.5mm audio port. These give you incremental control over your in-game audio, affecting master volume and the game/chat mix. It’s a helpful inclusion, particularly if you’re using a wired headset like the Turtle Beach Elite Pro that has no onboard controls, and I really enjoyed having everything in one place.
At $109.99/£109.99 the Valor Pro offers a heap of features for less than half the price of some of its competitors. It seriously undercuts the Thrustmaster eSwap X2 Pro, my previous pick for a wired Xbox controller, and while it doesn’t have the modular layout functionality, the Valor Pro is far more natural to hold. If you’d rather go Wireless, I do like the Elite 2, with the Core version coming in at £114.99, but you have to pay extra for the paddles, and fundamentally they aren’t quite as comfortable to use as the Valor Pro’s offering.
