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Earlier this year, Turtle Beach acquired longtime competitor PDP for $118 million—and, as Turtle Beach admitted when discussing its Q1 results, it turned out to be a great investment. On the other hand, if all PDP products are as good as the Victrix Pro BFG, that’s no surprise.

After a brief period of exclusivity on PlayStation, Pro BFG is finally available for Xbox and PC players. At first glance, it’s the total package: it looks great, offers an impressive selection of accessories, and boasts plenty of customization options, especially for fighting game enthusiasts.

Fortunately, it delivers on those promises and then some. The Victrix Pro BFG isn’t just cool – it’s the true elite Series X controller.

What’s in the box?

There’s a lot packed into the Victrix Pro BFG box, suitable for both casual and professional players. Its all-in-one case presents the pad in a sculpted holder, offering protection but still finding room for a well-curated selection of tools needed to make changes on the fly based on the game you’re playing.

The Pro BFG Pack contains:

• Victrix Pro BFG pre-equipped with reversible D-pad and left analog stick module, four button module and right analog stick and two standard recessed analog sticks;
• Wireless dongle;
• “Fightpad” module with six buttons;
• Two interchangeable D-pads (cross and circle);
• Two pop-on analog sticks (standard convex, long concave);
• Two eight-way analog stick collars;
• Screwdriver for changing modules;
• Three-meter braided USB-C cable; and
• Zippered carrying case and mesh cord pocket.

When your only initial complaint about the Pro BFG kit is that the carrying case lacks a “proper” handle – instead opting for a small cloth loop you can barely fit two fingers into – you know you’re off to a good start.

If you’re used to standard Xbox pads but want to fine-tune your skills, the Victrix Pro BFG is a natural step up. It’s very close to the standard Xbox controller design – almost identical in size and shape, except for the notable changes to the shoulder buttons, which are larger and more prominent. It’s also among the best-looking pads of 2024, with a gorgeous yet understated two-tone color scheme.

The smooth plastic finish with fine rubber grips on the front and back makes it feel comfortable and premium. The trade-off for these soft-touch surfaces is a strong plastic smell that lingers for hours—on par with cereal box toys in the 90s—but that’s a small price to pay for how good it feels in your hands.

The Pro BFG is also incredibly well made, combining a good weight with superb build quality that doesn’t creak or crack when twisted or turned. If anything, it is little too well made, which enlightens you when you first start swapping things – especially if you’re trying out a few different configurations.

Rookie in Engineering

The excellent Nacon Revolution 5 Pro focuses on weights, rings and heads; conversely, the weird-but-wonderful Thrustmaster eSwap X2 has cornered the market for modular, easily removable components for adjusting pad layouts on the fly. The Victrix Pro BFG sits somewhere in between the two, but is more difficult to customize than its competitors.

Each dual-socket Pro BFG module is attached to the controller with a pair of screws on a dual-window faceplate. The first attempt to remove them is laborious, but once you break the seal, the magnetic screwdriver makes light work of them. The small collars ensure you won’t lose the screws either – great attention to detail.

Faceplates can be customized for analog sticks; the two eight-way collars are an inspired inclusion. As with the screws, they’re a tight fit, and initially you’re worried that pushing the stock O-rings out of their holders will break the plates – and then you have to make sure you line up the new pieces to make sure they reflect the compass points. but they are incredibly well made and feel great when playing fighting games.

Of course Victrix Pro BFG improves Street fighter 6 or Tekken 8 sessions with the excellent Fightpad. Its six mechanical buttons are incredibly responsive and satisfying; with the top of the long analog stick, you can turn the pad into a small arcade controller. The fightpad could use room for a few extra buttons, but the 3×2 layout and larger button sizes are just right, while their spacing is well balanced to avoid mistakes.

Removing and replacing modules on the Pro BFG is mostly effortless; the two with analog sticks are easy, but removing the Fightpad is a nightmare due to the slightly rounded, low-profile buttons; it’s hard to catch and the best solution is to use a credit card to get under the buttons to get it out.

The same can be said for the D-pad module. The four-way diamond originally attached to the Pro BFG is not to my personal taste, but it takes a lot of force to get it out. The classic, four-way cross D-pad seems impossible to remove; At first I gave up on trying to remove it as I thought I would break the controller.

Easy activation

After this stressful and unsuccessful attempt to change the D-pad, the Pro BFG seemed broken – on the Series X dashboard, the menu started to move around. Fortunately, the controller was fine; the problem was the incredibly sensitive LT and RT triggers. I’m far from heavy handed, but just resting your fingers on them makes them stronger.

Fortunately, this can be fixed relatively easily via the Victrix Control Hub on PC, a great app – when it works. There was difficulty in identifying the Pro BFG in the first case; then the firmware update took a worryingly long time; finally, the first time i tried to customize the controller it didn’t identify any of the swappable modules.

As with most things in life, a “turn it off and back on” approach fixed it. When everything is working normally, Control Hub gives you everything you need to customize buttons and inputs, balance dead zones, and run diagnostics on all inputs. Without this software, you’ll be stuck with hairy triggers that aren’t even tempered by the five stops you can use to limit them.

On the other hand, the four rear buttons aren’t too sensitive – a common problem with other pro-level controllers – and are large and well-shaped enough to fit comfortably in both large and small hands.

Best value Xbox pro controller?

Aside from the hairline trigger issue, the Victrix Pro BFG is hard to fault. Of course, you get a bit of a moisture trap between the stock buttons; the launch, review and share buttons are too far apart, but at least they’re big; you never shake the feeling that you’re going to break something when customizing the D-pad. But when it counts, this pad delivers.

Overall, the Victrix Pro BFG offers everything you could want: layout switching, wireless and wired play, unmatched fighting game accessories, 20 hours of battery life, and all the tools you need to tweak and perfect your style of game. You might think $180 is a lot for a controller, but it’s worth every penny.