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What happened to LAN cafes, eh? Back in the late 90s/early 2000s, you couldn’t walk 10 paces without encountering one. Everywhere you looked, there was a LAN cafe, filled to the brim with kids and teens playing Half-Life, Team Fortress or Counter-Strike. Fun times. Playing with friends, meeting new people to play (and rage) with…all without moving from a spot for hours. If you’ve been missing that experience, Haven might just be what you’re looking for.
Located on the second floor of the Kallang Wave Mall, Haven is a cozy throwback to those good ol’ days. Except with modern hardware and comfier furniture. Rows and rows of them in fact.
You come into the location, and that’s first thing you’ll see. It’ll bring a tear to the eye of any gamer, young or old. It’s like coming into a candy store…but you know, with games instead.
Lots and lots of them. Pretty much every popular multiplayer game you can think of! Marvel Rivals, Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends, Valorant…you name it. Haven has it installed and ready to go.
The great thing about Haven is that it doesn’t tie you to the games it already has on-site. With support for Steam and Epic, you can log into your own accounts and load up your own games to play while you’re there.
Cool right? Just be sure to remember to log out after!
Haven’s a joint effort by a number of companies, including MSI, Corsair and Dreamcore, who’ve decided to team up and furnish the place with their brand of hardware.
Now, we love MSI (as you can see with my reviews of the MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16G Gaming OC and the MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 32G Suprim Liquid SOC) and we also love Dreamcore (send stuff to us please!), we figured this was something to write about.
So when I was invited to head on down for a media preview of the place, I figured why not!
While hanging out at Haven is free, to partake in the festivities…that is to say, to play, you’re going to have to pay. Here are the rates if you’re wondering.
If you’re interested in playing there, Haven’s rocking with desktops decked out with decent hardware. These are the specs for the machines there –
Motherboard: MSI PRO B650M-P
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7500F
GPU: MSI RTX 4060 Ventus 2X Black
RAM: Corsair CMH32GXSM2B6000Z30 (2x16GB@3000MHz DDR5)
Storage : MSI M480 PRO 2TB
Now I know what the hardcore among you are thinking.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 only? Pfft.
Not even NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5000 series! Lame! *eyeroll*
Ok, I do admit the hardware’s last generation…but tell me what LAN or multiplayer game is a resource hog or needs a top of the line GPU to run well.
Valorant? Nope. Overwatch? Uh-uh. Marvel Rivals? Try again. Counter-Strike 2? You’re kidding, right?
Exactly.
Like it or not, today’s popular multiplayer games aren’t demanding games. They’re games hardware from three or four years ago wouldn’t have problems running on 1080p. Those are the games at Haven (and most LAN cafes really), so it wouldn’t really make sense to have a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 or 5090 would it?
I mean it’d be awesome…but it wouldn’t be cost effective.
Anyways, Haven is meant for those multiplayer games…but it’s also focused on building a community. Not just for those games either, as Haven is also eyeing a less prominent niche – fighting game afficianados.
From what I’ve been told, Haven is planning to regularly host fighting game tournaments.
Already on the cards are Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8 and Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising tourneys, with more slated on the horizon. If you guys from Haven are reading this, might I suggest old school fighters too?
SoulCalibur 2, Garou: Mark of the Wolves or anything from the MARVEL vs CAPCOM Fighting Collection would be great!
Computer games aside, Haven’s also working on bringing consoles into the mix. Nothing’s set in stone just yet but should things go well, expect to see more options at the location sooner rather than later.
So, if you’re in the general vicinity with friends (or alone), why not take a detour to Haven and see what it’s all about.
Here’s the full address – Kallang Wave Mall, 1 Stadium Pl #02-09, Kallang Wave Mall Singapore 397628.
Tell them The Technovore sent ya.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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