CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition Controller Review

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You may remember back in November of 2024 we shared the news about a new controller from CRKD that was changing the game for rhythm games. That’s the NEO S Purple Wave Edition and it was designed for use with Fortnite Festival and other rhythm-based games. And, I got my hands on one to review! The controller is available now on the CRKD website and will set you back £59.99.

Beat Drop

As I’m back in my Fortnite era, I knew that the best way to test the NEO S Purple Wave Edition was playing Fortnite Festival. Well, it couldn’t be anything else surely, the controller itself says Fortnite Festival on it! Lets see how I got on.

The NEO S Purple Wave controller, a wrist strap, charger cable and velvet carry bag, all sit on a pink desk.
Unboxed and ready to go

Design

With its rectangular design, you could be fooled into thinking this won’t be comfortable. Well, you would be partially right. If you are just picking up and playing a game for a short period then it’s absolutely fine. However, without any real ergonomic styling, it gets a little uncomfortable during long game sessions. I do absolutely love the purple colourways of this controller though. Visually it is very pretty.

Of course the real selling point though, is the Fortnite Festival adapter. A detachable 5-fret attachment designed primarily for Fortnite Festival turns your controller into a miniature guitar. Kind of. I say guitar but actually the controller can be used to play Keytar, Drum, Mic, and Bass song parts. Which is pretty much a whole bands worth just at your finger tips!

The controller itself comes bundled in a microfibre string bag, protecting it from getting too grubby. Included in the box is a charging cable, so you can charge it whilst using it on your PC. Which I was surprised by as I had read it did not come with a cable. Topping the accessories off, it also comes with a Velcro hand strap that I’ll be honest, I couldn’t work out how it worked. And so on my desk it sat. Still sits in fact.

The NEO S Purple Wave edition controller sits on a pink desk, the festival attachment made for rhythm games has been taken off and sits below the base controller.
No v-bucks needed for this style icon

Features

The NEO S has quite a few neat features for a controller of its size and price. It is dongle-free, which means that you will need a dedicated dongle to pair it with your PC. Unless you’re posh and inbuilt Bluetooth like my laptop. Connecting to your Switch takes a second or two via Bluetooth. Alternatively, you can use it wired with the included USB cable. 

Hall effect thumbsticks mean that you will never get any stick drift and you will continue to have nice responsive control when using the Neo S. If you connect this to the Switch then absolutely make use of the motion controls. It makes Mario Kart feel that little more immersive!

With adjustable trigger sensitivity as well as vibration feedback, the controller has plenty of opportunity to set it up just perfectly for you. The swappable stick tops give you options to increase your comfort too. Or to add cute cats thumbsticks. It’s up to you. The Neo S also has a couple of extra buttons on the back that you can configure as well. Again, giving that bit more freedom in your customisation.

Compatibility

As of right now the NEO S Purple Wave Edition is compatible with PC, Nintendo Switch, Mobile, Tablet and Smart TV Gaming. With Xbox compatibility apparently coming shortly. As yet there has been no word on PlayStation which is a shame.

From getting it out the box, to set up I found it really quite easy to pair the controller with both my PC and Switch. Whilst initially it threw me that the controller comes up as a “Xbox wireless controller” when pairing with my PC, the Bluetooth capabilities were decent. I used the controller from the comfort of my noblechairs Boba Fett office chair, with no connection issues. I then took it on my travels with me, and tried it out from the comfort of a hotel bed with my Switch about 10ft away from me connected to the hotel TV. And again no connection issues. The same could not be said for the hotel wifi!

As this is a Bluetooth enabled CRKD product it is compatible with their CRKD CTRL app which is available for iOS and Android users. The app lets users create an inventory of their CRKD product collection and customize settings. This includes things such as button remapping, deadzone adjustments, trigger sensitivity, rumble strength, and firmware updates.

Final Thoughts

The NEO S Purple Wave Edition, minus the festival attachment, worked well during my review time with it. Both on PC and Switch. To be honest I don’t have any gripes with the base controller in itself. It was a nice size for my hands and it certainly felt more accessible to me, just not for long periods of time. This is not the controller for a long gaming session.

The festival attachment is another matter. No matter what set up and I adjusted the settings to or if I used it on PC or Switch, the buttons just felt off. The controller was the wrong shape for the attachment. And it ended up feeling clunky and awkward. The buttons almost needed to be on the face of the controller as it never felt like I had enough grip to it. Maybe if I could have worked out how the wrist strap attached this may have helped! All the buttons being the same colour, which looked pretty, did not help with the learning curve of using it either. Which is a real shame, because the festival attachment is it’s very selling point and the very reason I wanted to test it out!

Overall the NEO S Purple Wave Edition is really pretty and the base controller is easy to play on, but the festival attachment just misses the mark for me. I still have faith in the CRKD team though, and the CRKD Guitar has me really hyped. I am longing for the old days of Guitar Hero and that could fill that rhythm hole.

With all this in mind, I award the NEO S Purple Wave Edition a Thumb Culture Silver Award.

Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.

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