Who needs a desk when you can just sit back in a recliner and surround yourself with monitors? That’s the basic idea behind Acer’s Predator Thronos gaming chair. It looks less like a piece of furniture and more like something you’d find in an arcade. The chair measures 1.5 meters tall, has an ergonomic seat that reclines to 140 degrees, and of course, there’s built-in rumbling. You can also fit three 27-inch monitors around you, which makes the Thronos an ideal setup for flight sims, as well as a Predator gaming desktop.
The Thronos looks just as imposing in person as it does in pictures. As I climbed in, it almost felt like I was boarding a theme park ride. It didn’t take long for me to settle in, though. At its core, the Thronos is really just a fancy recliner with vibration and a huge monitor mount. There’s a control pad on the left that lets you adjust the angle of the chair, footrest and the gigantic monitor arm. In front of you, there’s a small table for your keyboard and mouse. I was worried that they’d start slipping around as I reclined backwards, but they were surprisingly stable.
In my brief demo of the Thronos, I played a bit of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. With three 27-inch monitors spanning my field of view, the game was as immersive as you’d expect. The Thronos’s rumbling synced up with the action on screen — it was particularly impressive as rocks tumbled around me as I was trying to escape an underground tomb. While I’m not usually a fan of vibrating chairs, the Thronos felt almost therapeutic as I tried to complete a Tomb Raider puzzle and got into a shootout with a band of enemies. Overall, it feels like a gaming chair I could easily sit in for hours.
Still, it’d be nice to see Acer going full tilt with this insane gaming chair. For one, there aren’t any cupholders, just a few small pockets on the sides of the seat. Given that it takes a while to get in and out of the Thronos, it’d make sense to have some way to keep busy gamers hydrated. There’s no pricing for the Thronos yet, but Acer says it’ll be released by the end of the year.
