Roccat is no more. The peripheral brand out of Germany, bought by Turtle Beach in 2019, is being retired and all of its existing product lines will be shifted over to Turtle Beach branding.
“We want to bring a greater level of integration to our family of products across console, PC and simulation,” a statement on the Turtle Beach, formerly Roccat, website says. “We felt that time and resources would be best spent focusing under a single brand and creating a range of products that matter most to gamers.”
First and foremost a PC peripheral brand, Roccat was bought by Turtle Beach for $19.2 million total in 2019. At the time the move was cited by Turtle Beach as a way to expand outside of the company’s existing console consumer base. It was also said at the time that Roccat was a strong brand in the German PC gaming peripheral market, though not nearly strong enough, it seems, to stick around for the long run.
Products such as the Roccat Vulcan II Max or Roccat Burst will simply become the Turtle Beach Vulcan II Max and Turtle Beach Kone. Though you might see some Roccat stickers sticking around as the full rebrand will take some time to be completed.
Roccat’s social channels are noted as being rebranded to Turtle Beach PC, and if you look at historical posts from the Roccat account on X, you’ll see that change has already taken place. However, if you try to load up Roccat’s X account directly, you’ll be greeted with a big sign that says it’s been deleted. So perhaps that subtle ‘PC’ rebrand plan is already scuppered.
Customer support has been covered by Turtle Beach customer support since shortly after the acquisition, meaning that process shouldn’t change at all. Just reach out to Turtle Beach if you have an issue with a Roccat product.
So, materially nothing changes, only the names and faces. Though it is a shame to see a relatively well-known PC brand get abolished in favour of one more frequently thought of in regards to consoles, but then what does that really matter in the long run. It’s all just branding, after all, and it’s the actual hardware that counts.
On that note, Turtle Beach has unveiled a few new products bearing its own name under the PC gaming umbrella. There’s the new Vulcan II TKL Pro, a compact keyboard with Hall effect switches, and three gaming mice: the Burst II Air Wireless, Pure Air, and Pure Sel. There’s also a new headset for PC, the Atlas Air, though that was more traditionally a Turtle Beach line, anyways.
www.pcgamer.com