Razer Basilisk V2 Review: Breaking Through the Clutch

Written by Soon Kai Hong

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Basilisk. A bright green lizard found in Central America, or a mythical creature with a lethal breath. We’re… thinking the latter.

Like a snake hiding in the bushes…

The Razer Basilisk is one of the newer mice in Razer’s ever-expanding arsenal of gaming peripherals, and it does sport a striking design that stands out from the rest. Originally released back in 2017, the company has released three more variants following that. One that’s slightly more affordable, and two which ditches the wire.

But today, we’re back to take a look at its official successor, the Razer Basilisk V2.

To cut to the chase, this is a great gaming mice that’s highly customizable, offers great performance and feels great in the hand. If you’re used to a Basilisk, this feels the same and a little more.

But if you want to know more? Well, stay a little longer.

Design & Features

If you’re familiar with the previous releases of the Basilisk, you’ll be right at home with the Basilisk V2. Its design is essentially the same as the wireless variants and to be honest, not too far from from the original either.

It still features those sharp and striking angles that make for quite a unique design. It is a good looking mouse, no doubt.

A comfortable matte coating covers both the left and right mouse buttons as well as the palm rest area, textured grips on both sides provides added control and the entire package ends off with thin strips of glossy plastic crisscrossing the body for added visual flair. The mouse comes with a fully braided cable as well, which should help with durability after prolonged use.

Despite the rather outlandish design, the mouse remains comfortable to use even after long hours of gaming. This was thanks in part to not only the materials used that we’ve just mentioned, but also because of the addition of an enlarged thumb rest support and the overall curvature of the mice, which fits nicely within your palm.

We also can’t forget the inclusion of Razer Chroma for all that RGB goodness, though there’s just two zones for you to customize, namely the scroll wheel and the iconic three-headed snake logo on the palm rest.

Buttons-wise, you get a total of 11 programmable buttons, which includes the signature multi-function paddle found in previous variants of the Basilisk. More on that later. Of course, it goes without saying that, any of these 11 buttons are fully customizable through the use of Razer Synapse.

Flipping the mouse over, you’ll find two additional features.

The first is a toggle profile switch. With on-board memory support, you’ll be able to store up to 5 different profile configurations and bring it anywhere you go. To switch, simply press the button and cycle through.

The second is slightly more interesting. It’s a dial that allows you to tweak the resistance of the scroll wheel. Turning the dial upwards for less resistance makes the scroll wheel much smoother while turning the dial downwards for more resistance makes the scroll wheel more “clicky”.

In fact, it offers granular control, which means you’ll most definitely be able to find that perfect setting just for you. That’s the overall design and physical features in a nutshell, but up next is probably what’s more important.

Gaming Performance

Compared to the original Basilisk, the Basilisk V2 features an all-new Focus+ optical sensor, which is capable of a maximum of 20,000 DPI, 4,000 more than the original 5G optical sensor, and the switch themselves have been swapped out for Razer’s own optical switches as well.

In short, you get high precision and durability with the new mouse, and that’s a nice touch regardless. Does it enhance your gaming experience and make you a better player?

Well, definitely yes on the former, but for the latter… that depends.

As mentioned, if you use Razer Synapse, you’ll be able to customize the functions of the buttons to anything you desire, which you can save on the on-board memory in the mouse, or to the cloud.

Moving to the Performance tab, you’ll be able to save up to 5 different stages for DPI control, and also the Polling Rate, which we’ll suggest to leave it at 1,000 to get the best performance.

The Lighting tab does allow you to change the brightness of the RGB, along with a few different presets for lighting modes. A slight caveat though, is that if you want to get more in-depth, you’ll have to install the Chroma Studio app, which we felt is kind of excessive, given that the mouse only has two zones for lighting. It does, however, give you the ability to match your lighting with any other Razer products you may have, as long as they are all Synapse 3 enabled.

The last tab is calibration, and this is pretty cool.

It essentially allows you to adjust the cut off point in millimetres to which your mouse will stop tracking when lifting your mouse. But one extra touch Razer added is Asymmetric Cut-Off, which allows you to adjust not only the lift-off distance but the landing distance as well.

Now it’s cool and all, but if you’re just looking to use the mouse as it is, well, just use it as it is. For those of you want that granular control however? This might be just what you need.

The “Clutch”

Unique to the Basilisk line of mice, this is what Razer calls a multi-function paddle, which some of us affectionately call the “clutch”.

By default, pressing it and holding onto it with your thumb, will reduce your DPI to a really low number, no matter what DPI your mouse was at. This mouse was designed with FPS in mind, and that “clutch” might just help you execute those manoeuvres in games in perfect fashion.

For example, sniping in Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Let’s say, you’re used to using a high DPI setting especially when you’re literally running and gunning around, allowing you to do those flick shots. But when the pace of battle suddenly slows down, and you can grab a sniper rifle from a fallen enemy and assume a vantage point nearby?

Simply holding onto that “clutch” button will allow you to be able to more precisely align your crosshair, especially if you’re using a high magnification scope.

A slight oversight in our opinion, however, is that you can’t really use this “clutch” button with a fingertip grip, or even a claw grip. Unless you have really big hands, you’ll most definitely want to use a palm grip to ensure you can rest your thumb on the button itself for the quickest response.

Even so, this feature is really nifty, and we do like it.

Final Thoughts

The Razer Basilisk V2 is a great gaming mouse. It offers a unique yet ergonomic design, with plenty of features to boot. We especially like the resistance dial for the scroll wheel, and the “clutch” button, which though we didn’t use as much, felt that it was a nice touch.

To sum it all up, if you’re looking for gaming mice that offers you quite a bit of flexibility, and is comfortable to use even after long hours of gaming, take a look at the Razer Basilisk V2.

It may just be small improvements, but this is a worthy successor to the original Basilisk.

More information and purchase options for the Razer Basilisk V2 (S$129.90) is available on Razer’s website.