Valorant art director Sean Marino has responded to criticism over a new skin bundle added to the game, and explained why some cosmetic features don’t appear on every weapon.
On March 23, 100 Thieves owner Matthew “Nadeshot” Hagg posted a tweet that criticised an Endeavour skin for the Vandal weapon in Valorant.
“No disrespect to Riot and the design team, but I think I speak for everyone that if a bundle doesn’t come with alternate colour ways and special effects, the bundle is already chalked. So much potential with this one too,” wrote Hagg.
In turn, Valorant art director Marino responded with a post he shared on Twitter. “I want to use this as an educating moment and also give a bit of insight into how the whole development process works for skins,” wrote Marino.
“The fact of the matter is, anything, and everything, can always be more. We have to make tradeoffs.”
I had to sit on this for a bit. I really wanted to respond, and needed to find the right way to do it. No way I could fit this within the 280 limit so please excuse the image. https://t.co/zWuxZRmwO2 pic.twitter.com/OsTZayvV2y
— Sean Marino (@oniram177) March 23, 2022
“If we poured 150 per cent into everything, the team would burn out, the skins would take a lot longer to release, and everything would be insanely expensive. Nobody wins in that world. We sometimes do push on the things that we think will be the most meaningful for players.”
Marino went on to explain how the Valorant cosmetics pack Gaia’s Vengeance was delayed by an entire year just to add effects, audio, and coloured variants. He also noted how developing weapon skins isn’t a simple process. “It’s not just slap a camo on a gun and call it a day, or select a simple colour from a wheel. If it was that easy, every other game would be doing it.”
Marino finished by asking Valorant players to reframe criticisms to be more constructive rather than just saying things like “this bundle sucks.” And also made the point that “as Rioters and Valorant developers we choose to engage with the community in these discussion because it’s important to have that connection, to talk about things instead of ignoring them, and to make sure that every decision we make is one that benefits you first, not us.”
In other news, due to sanctions placed upon Russian businesses, Russian developer Four Quarters has told fans to just pirate Loop Hero instead of buying it.
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