MOZA Racing R3 Racing Wheel and Pedals For Xbox Review

If you’re serious about racing games, you’re presumably also serious about the equipment you use to play them. While a conventional controller is OK, and the Thrustmaster eSwap XR Pro Controller Forza Horizon 5 Edition has a very little steering wheel, for the most part, you’ll need some hardcore gear – a true steering wheel, pedals, and so on.

MOZA Racing has you covered in this regard, with a wide range of gear designed primarily for PC racing. However, with the R3 Racing Wheel and Pedals for Xbox, they’ve made an impressive foray into the console market. This is a rather remarkable piece of gear.

Moza R3: the pinnacle of Xbox racing gear?

We’re well familiar with the racing world. In fact, we’d go so far as to say that it’s been our favorite genre for the better part of four decades of gaming, having played nearly every racer that has graced the consolelands. And for the past few years, we’ve done it with a racing wheel in hand, cutting seconds off lap times and completely immersing ourselves in Thrustmaster gear, specifically the T248 and T128 wheels.

But, and we’ll say it now, the MOZA Racing R3 outperforms everything we’ve tried before. In fact, it is great. Like, truly brilliant. Consider this MOZA’s entry-level console debut, as the future seems incredibly bright for those eager to race on Xbox. However, there is a small (but significant) limitation.

So, what do you get with the MOZA Racing R3 Racing Wheel and Pedal Set? Surprisingly, you receive a really nice racing wheel as well as pedals. But we should go into further detail…

The R3 Bundle includes an absolutely gorgeous ES steering wheel. We’ve spent hours with this, especially while playing Forza Motorsport and DiRT Rally 2.0. It feels excellent in our hands, is substantial, robust, and well-designed. A textured and gripping wheel, every button you’d expect from the Xbox world is front and center, with a few small enhancements to round out the experience. In reality, this one contains 22 buttons.

Regardless of how you hold the wheel, a huge Xbox Nexus button is easily accessible, as are slightly smaller-than-average face buttons. The Home, Menu, and View buttons are flanked by a Share button, and the soft-touch D-Pad has not lost a beat. Obviously, this is a steering wheel, thus there are no thumbsticks; it would be odd.

All the buttons you could want—and more.

What is not unusual is the movement of the standard triggers and bumpers. The triggers have been moved to push buttons, and there are now additional S1, S2, LSB, and RSB buttons. The bumpers swing around to reveal incredibly tactile, clickable shifters on the back of the wheel. Again, these feel nothing short of exceptional in use, allowing for quick and effortless gear shifting and the like. They’re excellent to tug on while caning down a straight in any number of F1 games, working the gears like there’s no tomorrow.

There is a large ‘Radio’ button (remember, the goal is to immerse you in your racing experience as much as possible), as well as N and P buttons. The problem is, while there are a number of buttons front and center on the MOZA R3 wheel, they are all well within pushing distance, so you’ll rarely have to take your eyes off the race ahead. Granted, people with slightly smaller hands may need to move around a little, but we’ve found this wheel to be really accessible and useful. The only minor drawback is that when searching for the DRS button in F1 22 (the Y button), we occasionally come across something incompatible.

The wheel attaches to a direct drive unit, which is secured to the desk or setup you’re using, utilizing a simple quick release technique. We’ve had this attached to our EZ Desk Carbon Edition for a few weeks and appreciate the ability to easily remove the wheel while leaving the clamp and direct drive in place. With a few simple cable attachments, you’ll be up and running in minutes. And the fast release system is quite excellent; a tug on the MOZA liveried wheel ring is all that is required to divorce the wheel from the base and store it if necessary.

However, the direct drive basis is key to everything that powers the MOZA R3. Full of inputs, outputs, and ports, this is where you can connect it to power, the wheel, and your Xbox console. You may also connect the wheel and base to a pedal set, such as the SR-P Lite system included with the R3 bundle, as well as a digital dash, shifters, handbrake, and other accessories.

The drive housing is fantastic.

That pedal set is similarly good. This pedal set, made of high-strength steel, is a significant upgrade over previous models, as it is extremely solid and feel in the foot. It comes with a throttle and brake attached, but MOZA also sells an additional clutch pedal that may be installed. Better better, the pedals may be adjusted to fit your needs. These are by far the best we’ve used, with plenty of anti-slip pads on the underside and hall sensors inside.

The MOZA App is also available if you need to fine-tune things even further. Frankly, we’ve had so much fun using this right out of the box that the first default configuration has proven to be adequate.

So yet, we haven’t delved further into the MOZA R3’s keywords and features. Most of this is due to personal preference; I’ve long since stopped caring for such things. If you’ve read any of our previous posts, you’ll know that we’re not too concerned about 4K resolution, 60FPS over 30FPS, Ray-Tracing, or anything else. Similarly, we won’t be overly impressed with the MOZA R3’s 3.9 Nm DD Servo Motor, the revolutionary X Shape design of the drive housing, the ultra-low torque ripple and groove torque, the sophisticated temperature control system, or the base’s aviation-grade aluminum construction. That is not to say it isn’t essential; it may be to you, especially if you take your gaming – and racing – very seriously, but for us, the R3 feels, looks, and performs wonderfully. It ticks all three boxes with ease.

It ticks them so well that, despite the fact that we’ve had the opportunity to use a lot of gaming gear over the years, from chairs to beanbags, headsets to controllers, battery packs, and, of course, steering wheels, we can happily sit here and say that the MOZA Racing R3 is right up there with the best bits of Xbox gaming kit we’ve ever used.

All the gear is properly licensed for Xbox.

But, and this is a major but. Part of the reason we play on consoles rather than Windows PCs is that we know, almost always, that picking up a controller, booting up the Xbox, and loading up our favorite game will function without difficulty. We’re too old to be concerned with drivers, compatibility, and the like. As a result, it is frustrating to learn that the MOZA R3 is very limited in terms of the games that it can be used for – at least on Xbox, whether officially licensed or not. F1 2024, the latest and finest from Codemasters’ racing kings, fails to register input, despite the fact that you can play F1 22 and previous without issue. The thing is, we’re here to play F1 with the most recent lineup and fanciest features.

We’ve also had a terrific time hooning around with DiRT Rally 2.0, but that’s a game that’s years old, and we’ve had issues with the MOZA R3 functioning with a personal favorite, The Crew Motorfest; despite being listed as a working title, we can’t even get past the menus with the R3 in tow. In fact, loading that game immediately transforms the R3 from its normal Xbox console’mode’ to that of a PC. Strange.

So, you can see where we’re headed with this. By all means, if your game is supported, the MOZA R3 is stunning. However, this may not be the case, which is concerning for console players. Is this the fault of MOZA? What about Microsoft? What about the Xbox ecosystem? Or games as a whole? We’ll leave it up to you to decide.

If you enjoy the racing scene and enjoy nothing more than getting behind the wheel on Xbox (or PC), we’d strongly recommend the MOZA Racing R3. It’s easy to set up and feels amazing in your hand – and on foot. Hell, we’d gladly discuss updating old wheels and pedals to this one. At least we would if we could list certain games as a caveat.