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With everyone working from home and stuck inside, games have become more popular than ever. Verizon estimates a surge of up to 75 percent in gaming during peak hours and games like “Doom Eternal” experienced the best sales in the entire franchise for the release weekend in March.

For serious gamers, however, the right gaming gear and space can really affect their performance. That’s why having the right battlestation is more important than ever.

WHAT IS A BATTLESTATION?

A battlestation is essentially a custom desktop PC build, but the term has come to encompass the entire gaming space. From the monitor to the cables and even the decorations on the walls – everything contributes to the look and aesthetic of your battlestation.

Most battlestations will consist of following basics:

The desk, the monitor, the desktop tower, the keyboard, the mouse, the chair, and any audio equipment if desired.

But there are plenty of extra options you can add to your space to enhance the look including the desktop wallpaper, LED lighting, plants, wall decorations, and many others.

HOW TO GET STARTED?

While it’s important to make sure you have a nice PC build, it’s equally important to plan out your space ahead of time.

Some important things to keep in mind as you plan your set-up: what kind of desk will you use to support your set-up? If your battlestation involves multiple monitors, will they sit on the desk or will they be wall-mounted? How will you manage your cables and what kind of colours do you want to incorporate into your space?

TIPS AND TRICKS

Space Management

An issue that gamers frequently run into is managing the space around their battlestation. Unless everything is perfectly planned from the beginning, your set-up will likely evolve and grow as your needs change. A way to avoid encountering issues later is to plan around possible upgrades and to keep things simple

I think a big thing people forget is you don’t need everything on your desk. Once it becomes really cluttered, I find that it’s even tougher to do anything and then it just looks really really cluttered again. Experimenting with how you manage your desk is very important. I would just try to keep things simple.

– Alexander “Alexotos” Medeot, Twitch Streamer and Toronto Tech Enthusiast

Cable Management

Part of managing your space also involves managing your cables. As you add more and more to your set-up, managing your cables will not only mean preventing tripping accidents, but also preventing your space from becoming cluttered and messy.

One option to consider is going wireless where you can such as with your keyboard or mouse. Another option is to get a little handy with managing your cables with Velcro straps, zip ties, or even creating compartments for your wires and power bars under your desk.

Aesthetic

Deciding early on what you want your battlestation to look like will influence a lot of your buying decisions later. When it comes to hardware, for example, you may choose to go with items that match your set-up’s colours or themes which will narrow down your options. It can also influence what furniture you decide to buy if you’re trying to colour-coordinate your entire space.

One recommendation is to choose a few strong colours to coordinate your space around and highlight those colours with RGB lights or wall decorations.

I think with any art or any sort of creative thing that you do, you’re always going to find inspiration you draw from someone. So, I think it’s very important that you look at other people’s [set-ups]. Hey, if you want to tackle it head-on, no one’s stopping you, but I’ve always been a big believer in finding inspiration in other people’s work

– Alexotos

Monitor

With the rapidly evolving graphics of PC games, you need a monitor that can keep up with the fast-moving action. A monitor with a high refresh rate will ensure the display can keep up with the high-quality graphics. If your monitor can’t handle the graphics, you might suffer from blurred graphics or even screen tearing if your graphics card is incompatible with your monitor.

Some monitors and graphics cards feature synchronization technology, such as Nvidia’s G-Sync technology, that help to eliminate this problem. A chip in the display of the monitor communicates with the graphics card which lets the monitor adjust the refresh rate to match the frame rate of the video card.

Here are some recommended monitors from the line:

- 27GL83A
- 34GL750
- 39GN950

Keyboard

When it comes to keyboards for your set-up, you have a lot of different options available to cater to your needs.

Mechanical keyboards are very popular since they respond faster than most standard keyboards. The response time can mean the split-second difference between a win or a loss when it comes to gaming, but there are a lot of other factors to include as well: the look of your keyboard, RGB lights, how ergonomic a keyboard is, and recently, custom keycaps have become very popular.

colours, and even types of switches you want for your keys, but this will require more research and will be a little more costly.

BUILDING UPWARDS

I think my best advice would be to start with the necessities and build up from that! You'll start to get a better feel of what you need or don't need, as well as things that could improve your efficiency. Prioritize ergonomics before anything else!

– YamaChiika, Virtual YouTuber and Artist

Your battlestation will evolve as your preferences change, needs change, as well as technology evolves, so it’s important to pace yourself and leave yourself room and budget to grow. Your first set-up may not be your ideal battlestation, but it’s a project that is constantly evolving.