Thank you Thrustmaster for sending us this controller and several module packs to review!

I've been searching for the perfect controller since my days picking up odd and unique ones in the 1990s. I remember having the long-since discontinued Gravis Xterminator gamepad (it sadly no longer works on modern PCs) which was an early gamepad with analog triggers, an analog stick, and six face buttons. It was great for fighting games and N64 emulators, but was hit or miss for other uses. In many ways, the gamepad situation these days, especially on PC, is much, much better now than it was then. PC gamers can rely on console gaming standards, and Steam just works with those controllers. It's been great, as not all games are well-suited to keyboard and mouse, and it also allows our gaming PCs to be the go-to platform for all kinds of games. And with that standardization comes both blessings and downsides.

You see, modern controllers have largely standardized around two analog sticks, a D-Pad, four face buttons, two bumpers, and four triggers. Yes there is also start, select, menu, and share (or whatever each modern equivalent is) but that's basically the gist of it. This means games can largely expect a certain control layout, making the vast majority of games that support controllers work out of the box. The downside is many controllers look largely similar. Thrustmaster decided to take a unique approach. While they still work within the limitations of the Xbox controller input system, they also innovate in several ways, allowing them to bend the rules just a bit.

The Thrustmaster eSwap X2 Pro Controller is a part of their eSwap line, and the second generation of their flagship in that line. It has all of the features you hope to see in a premium controller, like rumble, impulse triggers, and high-quality buttons and sticks. What makes this controller special is the customization and attention to detail available here.

When you first lay eyes on this controller, the first thing obviously different is the sticks and D-Pad appear to be modular. And yes, they are completely removable! They can be pulled right out, and each is held in place securely via a powerful magnet. The analog sticks are fairly easy to remove, since you can hold onto them by the stick, but the D-Pad and Fighting module (more on that later) are much harder to remove, and have an oval hole in the middle. Each eSwap X controller ships with a special tool for removing these modules with a T-shaped head you can then insert, twist, and pull up to remove them with. It's clever, though I do wish there was an easier, tool-less way to do the same.

While the main draw of the controller is the swappable D-Pad and stick modules, other things can be swapped also. You can swap out the side panels by the handle grips, the analog stick caps, and the triggers. Swapping the triggers requires a Phillips-head screwdriver, which is included as the other end of the previously-mentioned special tool. The main panel plate where the logo is can be pulled off and swapped out also, though I don’t see replacements for sale. The rest is largely cosmetic, as I didn’t notice a big difference in feel between the stock black and the blue side grips included in the LED Blue Crystal Pack we were sent as part of the review, but sometimes it’s the small touches that matter. Also if you drop and scuff your hand grips, at least there’s a way to make it look much closer to new.

These swappable stick and D-Pad modules let you do a few things right out of the box. For one, you can put the D-Pad and stick modules in any location you like, and everything works. For example, if you prefer the left and right analog sticks to be mirrored like PlayStation does, you can do that, or if you prefer them staggered like Xbox, you can do that, too. You can even put them in the chaotic evil location of both sticks on the left and the D-Pad on the right under the face buttons if you like bad things. All three combinations work pretty much exactly as you might want them to. And, if you have a stick you feel is somehow more responsive in a certain position, or if a stick is dying, you can pull it out or put it in whatever position you prefer. Whichever stick is the farthest left is the left stick, and whichever is the farthest right is the right, no matter the location. You can also swap between rounded or concave stick caps if you like, mirroring the older PS3-style round stick caps or sticking with the more modern concave convention. For me, I greatly prefer concave sticks, so I stick with those.

One important benefit of the modular system is you can buy replacement sticks. If one starts to drift or otherwise fail, replacement sticks cost around $20, rather than replacing the whole controller. It's a cost-effective way to keep using the eSwap X despite any potentially failing stick, if one were to do that. While a few weeks is no replacement for months or years of use, in my time with these stick modules so far, they are flawless. My understanding is they use the highest-quality analog sticks on the market (despite not being hall-effect), and favor precision and smooth motion.

I compared the stock S5 NXG modules in the eSwap X2 against most of my other controllers I have on hand, like a Sony Dualsense 5, a stock Xbox Series controller, my Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra and my Nacon RIG Revolution X Pro. Each controller is great in their own way, with something making them unique. What surprised me though is the accuracy and feel at least matched if not exceeded all of the other controllers.

First, it's worth noting that outside of quite a bit of gameplay, I did my gamepad latency testing with the tools available on https://gamepadla.com/, a site which catalogs and provides testing tools for analyzing the performance data of many aspects of controllers. I used JoystickTester.exe, which seems to focus on the polling rate and the accuracy and fluidity of the analog sticks. In my testing, the Thrustmaster is the only controller out of my wide selection which supports a 500Hz polling rate out of the box, and also returns exactly to center without even a slight drift.

These things are seriously impressive. Since they are not hall-effect, a drifting problem may develop in the future, but out of the box, they don't just perform well, they're perfect. The DualSense and stock Xbox controllers are limited to a 125Hz polling rate, and perform much worse with an imprecise return to center. The Turtle Beach and Nacon both have a 250Hz polling rate, which is honestly fast enough for most. Despite having a hall-effect stick, the Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra would sometimes return to slightly off center. It's unlikely to have any impact on games, as the imperfection is slight, but it's not a perfect score. Interestingly, the Nacon Revolution X Pro is also perfect, in that the motion and return to center is also flawless. But that controller is limited to a 250Hz polling rate, rather than 500Hz. So the Thrustmaster wins this round decisively.

As for the rest of this competition, I will set aside the DualSense and stock Xbox controllers, as the Thrustmaster is really competing more with the premium controllers I have, and less so the stock ones. The D-Pads on all are unique in their own ways, but in my opinion, the Thrustmaster ‘D-IPPON’ is the best of the bunch. It’s even better than the first-generation eSwap-style D-Pad that is included with the LED Blue Crystal Pack. It’s not a bad pad, but the new one is much, much nicer. It feels soft to the touch with no sharp edges, and the mechanical switches somehow are easier to actuate than on the blue LED D-Pad. Compared to the other two, it's certainly better, though I do like aspects of each of the other ones.

The face buttons are a similar story. Both the Thrustmaster and the Stealth Ultra use mechanical buttons, but the flat buttons of the Thrustmaster feel better. The only downside is the button coating rubs off after a while, as my 'A' button is already shinier than the other three face buttons. The Stealth's buttons are more convex than the others, and don't feel as good. The Nacon's buttons feel great, but are not mechanical but membrane; they are excellent but different, so what you prefer is likely down to preference.

The shoulder buttons and triggers are excellent on all, but I would probably rank them Stealth Ultra first, with the Thrustmaster a close second, and the Nacon after that. The Thrustmaster and Turtle Beach both offer switches to allow you to limit travel for the triggers, and I love this feature, especially when done properly in hardware. While many games use analog triggers, not all do, and action titles often feel and react better with digital triggers, which this emulates. The Nacon lacks this feature. As for the triggers themselves, they all works similarly well, but I like the feel of the Stealth's a bit more. The eSwap is still excellent feeling though, and it doesn't bother me at all and I was happy to use it. The Nacon has a slippery feel rather than a rougher texture on the triggers, and I prefer more texture myself.

Of course connectivity wise, the Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra wins hands down because it supports wired, wireless, and Bluetooth connectivity. The other two are wired only, though thankfully have removable USB-C cables. The Thrustmaster eSwap X2 includes a high-quality fabric-wrapped cable that stays out of the way and feels nice, but it's still a cable.

All three of the controllers in this comparison have four rear buttons that can be mapped to any face button. The Stealth's are textured and easy to find, so if you use them often, this one might win. However, I don't use them that often, and the Thrustmaster's rear buttons are very easy to differentiate and you will never hit them on accident. It's an interesting layout, and since I rarely use back buttons, I like these the best. The Nacon rear buttons are very comfortable but easy to press on accident. The position is neat though, since you can use different fingers on each in a natural way. Either way, for my use case, the Thrustmaster wins, but it really depends on how you use your controller.

When it comes to software and customization, it depends on what you want. The Thrustmaster does have the least amount of software customization compared to the two others I am directly comparing it against, because there are only two onboard controller profiles. You have direct access to them via physical profile 1 and profile 2 buttons, but that's pretty much all you get. You can adjust stick sensitivity and deadzones, button mappings, adjust the trigger actuation length and sensitivity, and vibration level through the free ThrustmapperX software available on Windows store. You can also update the firmware from the app.

The software itself is functional, but nothing spectacular. On my old Windows 10 install on my desktop PC, I found the firmware update driver ended up crashing my computer with a reproducible BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) in a certain game I was reviewing at the time. This went away when I uninstalled that driver, but I ended up taking this as a sign my nearly eight year old Windows 10 install was due for a refresh, and installed a fresh Windows 11. I have had no problems with this since doing that.

Unfortunately, the Thrustmaster does not support a lot of adjustments when it comes to audio. It works in the sense you get sound, and you can mute the microphone with a press of a button, and you have dedicated volume buttons. Outside of that, no EQ profiles or much else. Though to be fair, I almost never actually use audio EQ, I just look for headphones that sound the way I want them to. Perhaps they assume that to be the case for most of their users, and I can't argue with that, but it is a feature deficit compared to Turtle Beach and Nacon.

Other big differences are when it comes to onboard profiles. The Nacon has four onboard profiles where you can adjust mappings, sensitivity, and audio, and the Turtle Beach offers ten. They are more difficult to access, with multiple button presses required to get there, but it is what it is. If you think switching between two quickly while playing a game is something you want, then the Thrustmaster delivers that. If you want more profiles depending on game genre, then the others might be what you need.

Now, onto the modules. As I mentioned earlier, we were sent the Blue LED Crystal Pack, the Forza Racing Wheel Module, and the Fighting Module. The Blue LED Crystal Pack includes no new functionality, but it does look really cool. I'm not normally one for glowing lights, but I have to admit I do like how they look. The D-Pad is not as nice as what is included with the controller, though the sticks should be functionally similar. Round and concave stick tops are included in blue, instead of black. The side grips are a blue color with a white outline, which really stands out in comparison to the default black color. You can also swap out the trigger covers with clear plastic blue ones, though they do not glow to match the sticks and D-Pad. The plastic material used on the stick bases, D-Pad, and triggers is a type of clear plastic used on lots of things, and doesn't feel as premium as what is used on the stock sticks or triggers, but I have no problem with it. While I do like how it looks, I probably wouldn't spend the $49.99 asking price on this kit myself unless I needed replacement sticks anyway and wanted a change.

The Forza Racing Wheel module kind of surprised me. It's both completely unnecessary and really neat. What it does is replace (or augment) your left stick with a new, single axis wheel that moves the X-axis from left to right only. Since the Y-axis is unavailable, one of the advertised features is you can't accidentally move up and down with it, but every movement is for left and right only. When you release the wheel, it quickly springs back to center; there is tension when pushing it, so you have a pretty good idea how far you moved it. When you move it far to the left or right it stops, so sadly it can't act like a spinner, but it still does a good job approximating one for games where it makes sense.

I tried this mini-wheel with several games, including the licensed Forza Horizon games from the branding, along with MotoGP 24, Neosprint, and even some non-racers. Every racer I have tried works flawlessly, though it takes some getting used to. For example, if you move the top of the wheel, your thumb goes in the same general direction as when using a normal analog stick, but if you use the bottom, it's the opposite. So your muscle memory needs adjustment, but it works well approximating a steering wheel. Interestingly, I find in racing games I often turn the wrong way when going in reverse with a normal controller, but with this wheel attachment, my feeble brain knew what direction to turn.

Neosprint is a top-down racing game which works really well with this controller, since you control the cars from up above. I feel like it's more intuitive racing with this mini wheel, especially since the classic Sprint games used a paddle controllers on the Atari 2600 consoles these games were originally available on. Speaking of the paddle, this wheel controller is uniquely suited for games of that nature. For example, Tempest 4000 is a modern remake of the classic Tempest games, and is a ton of fun, but it doesn't have mouse or spinner support, to the great disappointment of many. And while this wheel controller doesn't support continuous movement like those paddles did, it does feel a lot more natural for games like Tempest 4000, and is probably as close as we can get to that classic spinner experience for now, if the game only supports gamepads.

The other unique controller module is the Fighting Module. This one replaces the right (usually) analog stick with two more buttons, giving us six face buttons. This is perfect for most fighting games, as many market leaders like Street Fighter have light, medium and heavy punches and kicks, leading to six buttons. While I prefer to use an arcade-style fight stick when I can, gamepads are easier to take with you, and this gamepad works well for this. And yes, having six face buttons is awesome for games like this.

Since the four rear buttons are labeled M1-M4, these two front ones are labeled M5 and M6. You can map anything to an 'M' button, including repeats, while most but not everything can be mapped to the controller's main buttons. The M5 and M6 buttons are mapped to RB and RT by default, while the rest remain A/B/X/Y. In this case, it's intended for you to remap those buttons to whatever you prefer in your game, rather than remapping A/B/X/Y to the bottom four buttons and the top two to something else, because then you would have to remap those face buttons, and the limitations get in the way. You see, there is a limitation where non-M buttons (this includes A/B/X/Y, LB/RB, the D-Pad, and both stick buttons) can only be swapped with another, not double mapped to another button. You also can't remap the triggers. These limitations mean in practice you have to do some really gnarly remaps if you want to put A/X onto M5 and M6 like I wanted to. Unfortunately gave up after much trial and error I determined this configuration might just be impossible.

You see, I had hoped to turn this controller into the perfect N64 emulator controller, and it can do that, but you will have to configure the emulator for just this controller rather than a config which works on most controllers including this one. It's fine, I'll adapt, but it's worth pointing out that while possible this controller can pull N64 duty, you'll have to remap the buttons in the emulator instead of the controller. Despite all of that, the Fighting Module is really neat and worth getting if you intend to play a lot of fighting games or yes, even N64 emulation if you're willing to figure out the best mapping for you.

As a controller, outside of the customization and everything, I've been really happy using it. The rumble of both the base and trigger works well, even if it could be a touch stronger. I had no disconnection issues or anything, and the responsiveness has been excellent. While not officially supported, this controller worked perfectly on Linux for me using the open-source xone kernel module (usable via the xone-dkms-git package in Arch Linux's AUR). The only downside I've ran into is the controller only seems to support a 250Hz polling rate when connected via my USB hub, and gives me 500Hz when connected directly to the USB ports on my desktop case. I also noticed in Linux the controller only gives me a 250Hz polling rate no matter which port I connected it to.

The Thrustmaster eSwap X2 Pro Controller for Xbox and PC is really one of a kind. While it's not the only modular controller out there, in my estimation it's the most aggressive in its pursuit of modularity, with unusual ones like the Forza Racing Wheel module and customizable colors. While I certainly hope they release a hall-effect stick module someday so we can no longer worry about stick drift, the sticks that are included are absolutely incredible in quality and accuracy. The D-Pad module on the eSwap X2 is also fantastic, one of the best I've used. I can't say these necessarily represent a great value, as the price is certainly high, what they do offer is truly unique. It's a shame the carrying/storage case is a separate $25 purchase, but I did buy one and it's really nice. While the lack of a wireless option is regrettable, the emphasis on performance above all else is quite laudable, and I'm excited to see how Thrustmaster keeps improving these in the future. I really hope a wireless variant comes around soon!