We familiarised ourselves with Razer’s software suite in our recent review of the Razer Basilisk Ultimate, but it’s still worth going over some familiar ground. When setting up the Huntsman V2 Analog you can optionally download three different Razer utilities:



Strictly speaking only Razer Synapse is required to utilise the hardware to its fullest extent, but you may wish to install other components as you deem necessary. As its the config. utility we’ll be drilling down into Razer Synapse here.

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Upon launching Synapse you’ll be presented with the Dashboard where the peripheral to be managed, Module you wish to launch, or online service you’d like to take advantage of (e.g. product registration, support, or the Razer Silver & Gold rewards program). Any third party Chroma Connect compatible devices connected to the system will also be shown here, for example an ASRock motherboard with RGB support in the above image.



From this page you can also configure Global Shortcuts, keyboard and mouse shortcuts that will persist across all device profiles. Key functionality such as profile cycling is the obvious feature to highlight, but other factors important to day-to-day usage including Windows Shortcut proxies, macros, lighting and more are all aspects of the hardware that can be made consistent whatever the active profile.



Clicking on a given device or the tab option at the top of the window brings you to its configuration page. The Huntsman V2 Analog has only two config. groups, split as separate tabs, which you can tinker with on a per-profile basis.

Customising the Huntsman V2 Analog

The Customise Tab is where you set up every keybind on the keyboard, no matter how trivial or complex. As a result it’s dense with information and settings, and can be quite daunting to approach at first. Becoming familiar with a simplified version, particularly through a Razer mouse, can ease the learning curve significantly.

Simply clicking on any key brings up its unique settings tab, from which you can select behaviour. Setting ‘W’ to Default for instance maintains its standard behaviour, but setting it to Macro lets you assign a predefined macro and playback options including how many times it repeats. The options available differ according to which behaviour you select, and any key that is not set to Default will be highlighted in green on the keyboard preview.



Unique to the Huntsman V2 Analog is an option common to all behaviour categories: setting a custom actuation point. By default each key is set to 1.5mm actuation, but a slider can adjust that all the way up to 3.6mm. Pressing the key in question while a category tab is open will fill the bar with a light green, showing the current depth the key is being pushed to. Once a custom actuation is finalised you can also choose to apply that actuation depth across the whole of the keyboard if desired.

Dual Actuation



While a key’s behaviour is set to the Keyboard Function option, it’s possible to add a secondary function that will trigger once the keypress reaches a second, deeper level. This can be an alphanumeric, function or symbol keystroke, but not more complex instructions such as a macro.

The secondary actuation point needs to be at least 1mm deeper than the primary actuation and will require the Synapse software to register.

Analog Setup



Two additional behaviours that can be applied to each key are Controller (Analog) and Joystick (Analog).

Controller (Analog) presents not only conventional XBOX controller button and D-Pad bindings. Trigger and cardinal thumbstick bindings are also available, including predefined and custom sensitivity profiles. Amplitude levels from 0-255 can be set across the 1.5mm - 3.6mm keystroke, giving you fine control comparable with those on an analog controller.

Joystick (Analog) takes a different tack by binding keystrokes to either either buttons or a joystick direction. Joystick cardinal, ordinal and z-axis are all available as bindable directions, as is roll in either direction about the x, y and z axis.

Keyboard Profiles can be used to quickly switch between Controller and Keyboard bindings in-game, greatly improving flexibility where this sort of hybrid input style can be leveraged such as the modern open world genre. Titles need to be compatible with simultaneous keyboard and controller input to utilise this feature.

A small section below the Huntsman’s image on the Customisation page allows the binding of standard controller features (analog cardinal directions and analog triggers) to recommended keys ({W,A,S,D} and [Q,E} respectively).

Razer Hypershift



HyperShift is an optional modifier that triggers alternative behaviour for each keystroke, similar to a Shift key, but also extends to buttons across other Razer peripherals attached to the PC. MMO gamers in particular will seek to take advantage of this feature as they clamour for more viable button assignments to accommodate an ever-growing list of skills. To view the HyperShift bindings click the button below the model of the keyboard labelled Standard.

One way of using HyperShift to its fullest is by leveraging it alongside a compatible Razer gaming mouse such as the Basilisk Ultimate. By doing so the total bindings available on that mouse effectively double, at a stroke turning an conventional 9-button selection into something akin to a specialised MMO mouse. HyperShift can also be triggered on the keyboard itself of course, with sufficient practise turning normally redundant keys like the left Caps Lock into an additional modifier for any bindable in-game function.

Macros



Macro creation and editing is handled solely on the Macro page with a master list of each available to the user. Macros can be recorded here, with each keystroke and button press sequence stored for later editing, or specific actions can be inserted including text strings and even Run Commands.

Once stored, the UI will also indicate how many bindings the Macro is stored to on a given device, and what those devices are. This is an excellent troubleshooting feature we can’t recall seeing elsewhere that will make hunting down rogue keybinds far easier than might otherwise be the case.

And More

Located in the main Customisation window, Gaming Mode can be defined to selectively disable other default Windows behaviour beyond the Windows Menu key. Gaming Mode is enabled using the fn+F10 keyboard shortcut and status is demoted by the right-most indicator LED.

All in all, the software has a higher learning curve than with a Razer mouse, mainly because it crams so much functionality into the single Customisation tab. That being said, all the required functionality is there if you dig for it, and you’re handsomely rewarded if you persevere and tease out all its idiosyncrasies.