Inside Razer’s vision: How Charlie Bolton aims to redefine gaming hardware

Few gaming brands have as wide a portfolio of products and accessories as Razer, and the company keeps stretching into new categories over time. Razer's Global Head of Design plays an integral role in every one of those launches, and I was given the opportunity to talk to him.

Most of my time speaking with Charlie Bolton was discussing how the Razer design team brings Razer's many products to life alongside the rest of the company, and part of it was hyping me up for the Razer Kraken Kitty V3 Pro I went hands-on with. I had an hour with the man, though, so I dedicated the end of our conversation to the hypothetical.

This article is less about Razer and more about the man at the helm of its design team. Beyond the laptops, keyboards, headsets, mice, and other products that Razer makes, what does the head of design want to do?

Discussing the favorites of what Razer already does

Charlie Bolton has been with Razer for over five years now, and he's had his hands on practically everything coming out of the company. I asked him what some of his favorite Razer designs have been, and the first answer caught me off guard: the Razer Blade 15 Studio that Bolton has apparently been using all this time.

"[The Razer Blade 15 Studio] is like five years old and it’s still rock solid," he told me. "The essence we have for our Blades really personifies Razer’s attention to detail."

I agree that Razer Blade laptops have timeless designs, and the Razer Blade 14 (2025) I recently reviewed may be the best the company has ever put out. You have to pay a ridiculous sum for those aesthetics, though, so it's absolutely not for everyone.

Next, Bolton called out his favorite Razer headset. "[The Razer Barracuda X Chroma] isn’t a premium product, for sure, it just does its job so well," he said. "I love doing headphones, you can be a bit more creative with them."

I reviewed the Razer Barracuda X Chroma, too, and while it's not my favorite gaming headset, the design is certainly not what I criticized. It's definitely Razer's sleekest and most travel-friendly headset design. In general, I think headsets are one of the areas where Razer shines the most.

The Razer BlackShark V3 Pro I also reviewed is an excellent example of this, for example, especially with its new magnetic faceplates. While I learned in part one of this interview that this change originated from new European Union regulations, Razer's design team is still excited about the possibilities.

"We’re all fans of the [Razer BlackShark V3 Pro] faceplates, or anything that gives us more opportunity to do some cool designs," Bolton told me. "I’d love to do more customization of parts, like interchangeable headbands, material changing out, ear cushions changing out. ...There’s the Kraken Kitty SKU, as well, where you’ve got the ears you can switch out."

I already told Bolton myself, but I'll say it here for posterity: I need Razer to keep heading in that direction, please. User-friendly customization is always awesome.

Fresh chances to experiment come from many sources, too. "We’re starting to do a lot of licensed projects as well," Bolton said. "...Those projects are really, really interesting, where you’ve got your Razer brand with all its brand values… and then you’re partnering up with someone with a totally different outlook."

It seems like some of the most fun the Razer design team has, though, is when they don't have to worry about reality butting in on their plans. "Where we really push ourselves is when we do a concept project, where it’s an open-ended brief, where you’re suddenly not tied down to anything," Bolton told me, with no small amount of enthusiasm.

Razer has a long history of showing off concept projects, and I even got to sit in the cool and hot Project Arielle gaming chair during CES 2025. "You don’t have to worry about ‘Is it going to be possible to get it made?’ ...They’re really fun," Bolton continued.

If there were no limits, though, what could Razer do?

Of course, I had to ask Bolton if there were any upcoming projects he was incredibly excited about, and I got the exact coy response I expected: "There’s a couple. They’re quite premium, I’d say, but that’s all I can say."

Ah, well, if I couldn't get Bolton to spill Razer's most intimate secrets, I was at least going to pick his brain on what he'd like to do. Something he and I both agreed on? A long-overdue successor to the Razer Raptor monitor we loved in 2021.

"I hope we do another [Razer Raptor]. ...If we’re doing a whole battle station of products, you need a monitor," Bolton told me. We briefly talked about how a monitor is more of a challenge for Razer than companies with vast display catalogs like Dell or HP, but if Razer's Global Head of Design is on board with us finally getting a premium, OLED Raptor refresh in the future, then maybe I actually have a chance of seeing it happen.

Next, we dived deeper into the realm of improbability. "When you start looking into the furniture side — not just chairs, but desks and setups — how that could be quite cool," Bolton said. "Really putting technology into it like we did for a CES, the [Razer Project Sophia]."

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Yes, Razer does have a growing gaming chair lineup, and the aforementioned Project Arielle does incorporate technology, but it'd indeed be awesome to see Razer attempt something like the modular, all-in-one Project Sophia desk that Bolton mentioned (and Razer showed off during CES 2022).

"I want a really nice solution for [cable management] and just something very, very cool," Bolton replied after I brought up Secretlab and its fantastic Magnus smart desks (and how I do not understand how cable management works).

Bolton's most aspirational dream, though, is something completely different. "I would love to do a bit of automotive work with a car company or even a racing team, like Formula One, where you really work with them," he told me. "They’ve got all the technological know-how of making carbon fiber parts or all sorts of things. ...Just come up with something amazingly focused… that’s not happened, yet."

Plenty of companies collaborate with automotive brands, including Razer, with an extremely limited Blade 16 Lamborghini Edition back in 2023, but Bolton is envisioning something bigger. "Get them more involved, a much earlier stage in the project where they’re more integrated."

I'm not certain what that level of deep collaboration on design and engineering would result in, nor how likely it is to ever happen, but I'd love to see Bolton get that chance at some point.