ranzware
It’s no secret that thanks to capitalism things tend to look a bit boring. Products, especially in the tech space, are generally produced en masse to eek out the most profit. With half the stuff coming from the same few factories, peripherals can wind up looking mighty homogenous. Once again thanks to capitalism, tie-ins with fandom are often one of the few reprieves from this bland landscape. One of the latest offerings granting us the rare chance at gaming gear with a different look is this sleek-looking collab between the Corsair-owned Drop and Bethesda’s latest space exploration RPG Starfield.
The collaboration mostly features a keyboard and desk mat setup, and takes its cues from Starfield’s neo-NASA stylings with an all white base colour theme. Neat stripes of slightly faded colours that harken back to the old rainbow logos of the likes of Apple, Atari, and Commodore 64, complete the retro-future tech vibes. It delivers a keyboard setup I imagine the original Apollo crew dreamt we’d be using today to fly to Mars. Oh well.
The main event in this drop is the CSTM80 ten-keyless Mechanical Keyboard, themed after the in game Starfield controls, and priced at a hefty $249 while up for preorder. Its white magnetic decorative top casing (which can make the most satisfying sound) has a logo from the Constellation faction above the arrow keys and a few of those retro rainbow pops of colour around keeping it from being just a standard white keyboard. If you’re already packing a CSTM80 you can get just the case for $39.
These retro rainbows are repeated on some of the 88 keys, complete with ship control actions printed on dye-sublimated PBT caps. These are also available to purchase just by themselves for $60. My personal favourite has to be the engage printed on the enter key which is a fun nod for fans of both Star-fields and treks. For an additional $60 you can further beef these up with the Drop’s artisanal key also featuring Constellations logo in its bright blue housing.
Under the keys are Gateron KS-3 Milky Yellow Pro Switches, but if you’re not a fan this board supports hot swapping for five-pin switches, so you can customise it to your preference after the fact. The whole thing is finished off with blue topography styled panels on the side of the board, and a USB Type-C to Type-A cable for connecting to your PC. You can upgrade this to a special Starfield themed beefy looking metal plated connector, which you can also grab separately, for an extra $60 USD.
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Lastly this collab also offers a matching deskmat for $39 with the same white faded colour pop theme to lay your Starfield keyboard atop. Its design comes from the mission board in game but feels a little odd giving the actual space is mostly a blank white area that’s likely going to collect dirt faster than I can run the Red Mile. The mission here is going to be keeping that thing clean enough to not distract from the rest of your cool constellation gear.
There’s a few things in the pictures that aren’t accounted for, including a very cool looking Wave mic and a Stream Deck. These are a part of the Elgato Drop collab, which has already sold out. So it could well be worth preordering if you’re really liking this Starfield keyboard setup.
According to listings on The Drop website, these preorders are expected to ship in late August, so be aware you may be waiting a few months after putting your preorder in before you get to hit that sweet engage enter button.
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Kurt Indovina
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