It might sound insane, but Razer really wants you to feel a level of immersion that no other brand can guarantee, even if that pursuit means creating a cushion that injects haptics into your back and butt. But the brand is not all about avant-garde, RGB-fueled wild products like the aforementioned Freyja haptics gaming cushion or the Zephry Pro mask.
Take, for example, the Kraken V4 Pro headphones that were announced at the RazerCon 2024 event this weekend. The design is your typical Razer affair with stealth black aesthetics and oodles of RGB work on the earcups so that they can scream “gamer” from a mile away.
But the most interesting trick up their sleeve is support for haptic feedback, which vibrates to the tune of in-game content. Razer calls it Sensa HD Haptics, and thanks to a collaboration with gaming studios, the company claims that users can feel “everything from the whiz of bullets to the subtle vibrations of distant thunderstorms.”
There are three preset haptic settings to pick from, but users can create their own custom profile as well. Of course, there’s also an option to adjust the intensity of the vibrations on the Kraken V4 Pro headphones.
Now, these are not flat haptics. Instead, the vibration output is calibrated to the in-game action sequence intensity, the directional aspect, and the length of the audio playing in the background.
The whole system works just fine with music and films as well. Plus, the company is promising a response time of under 20 milliseconds, so you likely won’t run into any telltale non-synchronized audio and haptic streams.
At the heart of the whole system is what Razer calls “real-time audio-to-haptics conversion.” For games, the company says it worked with studios to deliver tailor-made haptic feedback suited for action sequences and cutscenes in titles such as Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy XVI, and World of Warships, among others.
Some of the titles will offer as many as 100-plus unique haptic experiences for different in-game sequences. “Razer Sensa can control multiple actuators to distribute haptics with varying localized effects, allowing you to feel the directionality, distance, and location of events,” says the company.
You can check the full list of Sensa -certified titles.
Notably, the Sensa haptics on the Kraken V4 Pro headphones are not limited to a small batch of titles. Instead, it can be enabled for “any game that has audio.” Razer’s website has listed custom settings for popular titles like the Assassin’s Creed series, God of War lineup, Elden Ring, Genshin Impact, and League of Legends, to name a few.
The rest of the Kraken V4 Pro is no drab affair, either. You get Razer-first quad connectivity modes (Razer HyperSpeed Wireless, Bluetooth, USB Wired, 3.5 mm), 40mm drivers, a retractable wideband microphone, and THX spatial audio support.
But keep in mind that if you enable all those flashy earcup RGB lights and the haptic experience, the battery life will come down from 50 hours to 12 hours per charge.
The Kraken V4 Pro headphones cost $400 and they are now up for grabs from Razer’s official website, Best Buy, Amazon, and other retail stores.