Valorant’s great-looking new Elderflame skin line is more elaborate than any other cosmetic in the game, but items as complicated as these new Judge, Vandal, Operator, Frenzy, and Knife skins weren’t easy for Riot to make.
On Wednesday morning, Riot Games announced Valorant’s most elaborate set of skins so far, themed with dragon designs. They also look great. Each different gun-dragon has its own roars, firing sounds, and animations for things like reloading or equipping. The dragons spread their wings, grab magazines with their claws, and fly toward players’ hands. They’re complicated and detailed, but Riot had another challenge with this skin line beyond just making it look good: The skins had to be fair and they had to feel fair. And those aren’t always the same thing.
Fairness in Valorantis tied to an idea that Riot refers to as “competitive integrity.” The main idea is that anytime you die, all the information and technology needed to avoid dying should have been at your disposal — rather than you dying because of lag, for example.
Competitive integrity can be a little harder to see when it comes to cosmetics, but everything still has to feel fair both to other players and to the player using the skins, which wasn’t easy to do with the skins as complicated as the Elderflame line.
In a recent interview with Polygon, Valorant producer Preeti Khanolkar explained, “Ultimately, you just want to win your game, so [finding] what’s going to look cool but not be ‘pay-to-lose’ has been a challenge.”
One of Riot’s early struggles with the Elderflame line, according to Valorant art lead Sean Marino, was trying to make sure both that the guns looked like living dragons and that players could still identify them as the same base weapons they’re familiar with.
