The world of sim racing gear is intimidating. I’ve often thought it could be something I’d enjoy but the complexity, expense and space requirements of a proper sim racing rig kept the idea well out of my mind. Then along came MOZA with its R3 Wheel and Pedals bundle for Xbox and PC, offering everything you need to get a racing sim going with just a desk and a game console.
The unpacking process for the R3 was admittedly a little intimidating. There’s a bit of assembly required – but this means the system is flexible enough to fit both desk mount and sim cockpit. Everything goes together in a reasonably straightforward way. Screw the reassuringly hefty wheel base to the desk clamp, lock the wheel on, wire up the pedals and plug everything into power and your games machine. Within about half an hour I had gone from the box appearing on my doorstep to being hooked up.
While setting up, I encountered one of my rare gripes with the kit. While the part of the desk clamp that sits atop your desk is nicely padded to protect the surface, the pieces that push against the bottom of the desk to hold it in place are bare metal. Without some padding it would damage the underside of a nicely-finished desk. It’s nothing that a spare cloth or some rubber lying around can’t solve of course, but worth calling out nonetheless.
Setup is finished by hooking the wheel up to a PC or smartphone and checking for firmware updates. Each part of the kit can have it’s own firmware to update but MOZA’s Pit House applications make it easy to check for and apply updates to the entire setup at once. We’re almost ready to race now.
Hooking up to the Xbox once everything’s powered on was as simple as connecting a USB cable to the console. The standard buttons on the wheel worked straight away to navigate the dashboard and game menus. Depending on the game you might be asked to do some calibration, and I found that it’s worthwhile to take the time and make sure movements in game and on your wheel line up perfectly. Not all games will offer this, however.
Now with all the setup, updating and calibration done it was finally time to put this thing through its paces. I’d been keen to try out the new Forza Motorsport and trying a sim racing kit seemed the perfect way to do so.
I started one of the early races and immediately noticed the hefty force feedback of the wheel base. The amount of feedback and the granularity of that feedback during a race is remarkable. You can feel the way tyres are gripping to the road with every bit of rubbery friction they can muster as you corner at speed. Undulations in the road translate to your wheel moving underneath your hands requiring effort to maintain control of the vehicle. The wheel adds a visceral element to racing that even the haptic feedback of the PS5’s DualSense can’t get close to.
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The wheel comes equipped with paddle shifters mounted to the back. These move with it, making gear changes easy to achieve as long as you keep your hands at 9 and 3 o’clock. They feel solid and chunky, with a satisfying click when actuated. I’d never played a racing game in manual mode for any serious amount of time before, but between having a proper wheel and the satisfying feel of the shifters here I went manual and never wanted to go back. The wheel itself is wrapped in a soft feeling PU Leather (so, plastic) which has a nice, quality feel.
The other major piece you get in this bundle is the pedals. While they’re not as exciting as a wheel with force feedback they form an essential part of the sim experience. Both pedals are smooth to operate, with appropriate resistance to allow for fine control of throttle and braking. Their ability to stay in one place while just on the floor was a weak point, however. For me, whether I had them sitting on carpet or a hard plastic chair mat they would slide around while I was driving. During a moment of hard braking, the last thing you want is the brake to move out from under you or not be where you expect. This would be solved by properly mounting them – but for a desk setup it might be worth finding something they can sit against to keep them in place.
It’s worth noting too, that this wheel bundle can evolve along with you if you enjoy the sim racing life enough to commit more money down the track. It can mount to a dedicated cockpit, and you can expand your options with clutch pedals, gear shifters and handbrakes that all plug into the back of the wheel base. While I think it’s a perfectly serviceable kit right out of the box, it’s nice to know that if you want to level up from here you won’t have to start from square one again.
If you’re considering this bundle, you should definitely peruse MOZA’s compatibility page before committing. While the manual says it should work for nearly any racing game on Xbox, I found I just couldn’t get it working with F1 23. I could launch into the game from the dashboard but nothing in the game responded to wheel button inputs at all. Not sure if it’s an Xbox issue or a game issue, but if a game isn’t on the rather large official list I’d be checking to be sure the game you want to play will work. The good news though is that F1 23 was the only problematic game I found. Forza Horizon 3 and 5, Motorsport, and EA WRC all worked wonderfully.
The MOZA R3 Wheel & Pedals bundle is my first serious attempt at using a sim-racing style controller setup, and it has changed realistic racing games for me. I took driving so much more seriously with a proper wheel in my hands. Doing practise laps of a new course to learn its lines, learning the appropriate gear to be in to approach and remain in the right torque band to zip out as fast as possible. Being behind a wheel made me take racing more seriously. I felt like I was getting better at racing by feeling the feedback from the car and track, and seeing my lap times improve as I learned to adapt to track conditions and to better my technique was a thrill.
