Razer Kraken Ultimate

Some iconic cans get the luxury treatment—and they’re worth the extra outlay

- PHIL IWANIUK

THE LIME GREEN GLOW and marketing hyperbole of Razer’s peripherals have been around since the earth’s mantle first cooled and simple lifeforms began appearing. The Boomslang mouse was there at the turn of the millennium, when we first got interested in playing games against other people, live, on the Internet, and it remains as iconic as it is preposterously named.

Since those early days in the gaming peripherals market, the competition’s heated up considerably, but Razer remains a big player thanks not just to quality mice, keyboards, and audio gear, but marketing and really, really fancy packaging. So, it’s no surprise to see the $180 Kraken Ultimate headset arrive in a box covered in spot UV treatment and pithy slogans such as “Make sound your weapon.” If anything, it’s slightly disappointing not to be welcomed to “the cult of Razer” by the inner packaging, as the pre-Ultimate iterations of its headsets used to do, but we’ll work past it. Its packaging is smartly presented; this is what we’re trying to say.