Gamesir Tarantula Pro Controller review

With so many controller options on the market, it can be hard to decipher which new features are included to be useful and which are just gimmicks. One of the main selling points of the Gamesir Tarantula Pro seemed like the latter until I actually started using it: swappable face buttons. And I don’t mean buttons you remove and replace like the Thrustmaster Eswap X Pro, I mean a fully integrated mechanical feature that changes the Xbox face buttons to Switch face buttons. And thanks to a little window in the grip, you can even watch the cogs moving, and feel the whirring click when it happens. It’s incredibly cool.

It’s so cool that it makes me wish the controller itself looked a little more stylish. It’s a fairly plain Jane, shaped roughly like the DualShock 4 but with a weirdly out-of-place camo design and a matt finish so dull it’s hard to pick out features unless the RNG is in full effect. There are also arguably too many buttons, placed in such a way that just finding the menu buttons becomes difficult.

This is exacerbated by the fact that activating all the features requires button combinations like you’re playing Mortal Kombat and trying to rip someone’s spine out for a laugh. Okay, maybe it’s not that complicated; but there are so many different combinations that even if they are fairly simple, they’re just too numerous to remember. There’s a combo to control the RNG patterns, alter the preset customisable buttons, or change the face buttons as mentioned. It’s great to have so many options with one controller, but it feels like a lot of it could have been mapped to a couple of clicky sliders somewhere.

But look, these features, while nice, are ancillary. The real measure of a controller is how it feels, and for sub-£60 (at time of writing), the Gamesir Tarantula Pro is one of the best I’ve used. Being based on the DualShock 4 immediately scores this points, as that was one of the best controllers of the last few console generations, but this also feels incredibly responsive.

Mostly this is down to the TMR sensors in the thumbsticks. Recently, we’ve seen more and more controllers boasting “Hall Effect” sticks, as a way to combat the dreaded stick drift that has plagued controllers in the last few years – particularly the Nintendo Switch’s joycons. Hall Effect sticks employ magnets to control the sticks rather than physical contact, which prevents wear and tear and eventual drift. It works really well, and any controller that features it will do you proud.

And yet, someone has already improved on it. TMR stands for Tunnel Magneto Resistance, and is far too sc-fi for me to fully understand. Suffice to say, it improves the feedback of the Hall Effect magnet tech, making everything feel smooth, more responsive, and more comfortable, while still eliminating stick drift. Even with the lightweight, arguably cheap feel of the Tarantula Pro’s casing, it’s still perhaps the most comfortable and confident I’ve ever felt using a controller on PC or Switch.

A major upshot of TMR is that it also puts less strain on the controller’s battery, which means the Gamesir Tarantula Pro has a massive battery life when compared to something like, say, the DualShock 5. Where as that overpriced, though admittedly feature-rich, beast can eat a fully charged battery in 5 or 6 hours if you’re lucky, the Tarantula Pro can last for five or six times that without needing to be charged. I’ve been using it for Marvel Rivals on PC for the last week and haven’t had to charge it once. I haven’t checked my hour count, but it’s streets ahead of most other controllers I’ve used.

Perhaps the only thing that really lets the Gamesir Tarantula Pro Controller down is the visual design and the overly complex feature suite. But these are small concessions for a gamepad that feels this consistent and reactive. Oh and it even comes with its own charging stand if you pay a little extra for the feature. It replaced my previous favourite PC controller, the PowerA MOGA XP-Ultra, and I can’t see it shifting from the top spot any time soon.