Aftershock opened its doors to their new Experiential Centre in February and Ardent Collective was there to get a first look during the media preview. Titled ‘Endgame’, in my head I went ‘wah that confidence’. Then again, does Aftershock refer to the Endgame as ‘this is their final showroom experience’ or ‘this is the showroom experience to end all showroom experiences’ in the boutique PC space.
Here’s a little nugget about me. I’ve been in Sim Lim Square since I was 10, during the 1990s. To me, Sim Lim Square represented PC building for me, and I was used to going through entire floors of PC component shops where motherboards, graphic cards and more were stacked in shelves behind counters. Customers would have highlighters in one hand and price lists in another. The idea of needing a showroom when you build a gaming PC seemed almost gimmicky, or so I thought.
Fast forward to 2022 and we live in a world where experience matters. How a brand makes you feel, how it takes you on a journey matters. There is a fine line however between being effective and being all fluff. That was my main doubt I cast on the brand as we parked our car at the carpark below before heading up to the centre itself.
Entering the centre itself we’re immediately greeted by a large wall with the Aftershock logo overlooking the entire centre. On the left the area was separated into open booths dedicated to the partners of Aftershock; leading brands in their respective fields such as Omnidesk, Secretlab, Logitech, Razer and more. On the right, a long island bar set the stage to a line of PCs from Aftershock PCs for customers looking to see these designs in person before purchasing a desktop from the brand.
Moving through the different areas it is clear that Aftershock has put a lot of thought into the PC building experience.
Monitors and audio products have their own dedicated areas and if you wish to build your PC yourself with the help of the team from Aftershock, you can as well.
Being content creators, the Streamer Zone is a zone that is familiar to us. With brands like Nanoleaf, Elgato and Razer featuring their products for live-streaming arranged by tier, aspiring streamers are presented with a more streamlined buying experience to gear up your setup.
The main concourse of the showroom is a dazzling showcase of Aftershock’s most unique PCs. We were especially thrilled to see a World of Warcraft themed PC (fans of the game since 2007 until well, Shadowlands became a distant shadow of an expansion we’d prefer to forget). Another PC that left a deep impression in our minds was the bubble tea themed PC! Aiyo, got so passionate about bubble tea until like that or not.
Right at the back of the experiential centre behind the curtains lies a custom keyboard fan’s heaven. Mash is a new joint company venture by Aftershock and local keyboard brand Tempest that aims to provide individuals with the ultimate custom keyboard building experience. My savoury sweet tooth went on high alert when I entered the space. Jars of candies and sweets awaited me… wait, they were keyboard switches. Yellow, blue, red, brown, linear, tactile.
The team at Mash were super helpful at letting us try out how different switches felt, and if you have absolutely no idea what the hype around custom keyboards are all about, the team is very helpful with sharing more information and well, poisoning you with different keyboard frames, keycaps, switches and more.
It was a pleasant surprise when we were offered the chance during the preview event to build our own custom keyboard. Definitely hope I didn’t look too incompetent.
Experience the tour through our eyes in this video:
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Enjoys the art of drifting, stealth-based and racing games; the latter 2 he’s not very good at. His laughter puts hyenas to shame.
