18 PCWorld FEBRUARY 2019NEWS RAZER HYPERSENSE’S VISION FOR HAPTIC-FILLED PC GAMING
peripherals. Now, let’s be clear: Most of these
peripherals aren’t being sold yet. They’re
Razer prototypes, and may or may not ever
see the light of day. The CES setup consisted
of the aforementioned Razer Nari Ultimate, a
haptic-enabled chair powered by Subpac,
and a haptic-enabled mouse and wrist rest
powered by Lofelt.
Overleaf is an illustration.
So yeah, the Nari Ultimate is still carrying a
lot of the weight. The wrist rest vibrates to
signal movement from the left though, while
the mouse vibrates to simulate right-hand
movement in addition to traditional gun
feedback. Then the chair subwoofer handles
rear-facing events, plus any large-scale
impacts (i.e. explosions).
Take that, controller rumble. This is what
PC haptics should look like.This isn’t the first time
these ideas have been
explored. Subpac’s an
established product,
albeit niche, and
SteelSeries makes a few
rumble-enabled mice, the
Rival 500 and Rival 710.
But the key difference?
HyperSense, again.
When I reviewed the
Rival 500 (go.pcworld.
com/rv50), my main
complaint was that its
haptic capabilities relied
on developer integration—and at the time,
that compatibility list consisted of
approximately five games. I’m sure the
situation’s improved a bit since then, since
SteelSeries just released the Rival 710 in late- But still, it’s a pretty mediocre way to
bring about new technology, as we’ve seen
with the bevy of competing RGB LED tie-ins. If
you have a Razer keyboard, Overwatch will
trigger some cool stuff! If you have a Logitech
keyboard, Grand Theft Auto V’s your game! If
you love Corsair, Far Cry 5 is your game!
And so on, and so forth.
HyperSense is plug-and-play though. It’s
simply reading your low-frequency range and
attempting to emulate what it “hears.” It’s not
always 100 percent spot-on, but the
advantage is it works with every game, every
movie, every bit of music straight out the box.