Valorant dev explains why attack-defense skins aren't possible

Fariha Bhatti Published 11/04/2023

The Black Market bundle has given Valorant players a glimmer of hope for the possibility of attacker-defender-sided skins, but the developer has explained why it’s a challenge.

Valorant has over 300 skins in total that collectors love to buy. Some players even own almost every bundle available in Valorant, which stacks up to an insane amount of money. But unfortunately, they can only use one skin at a time. Currently, Valorant doesn’t allow equipping random skins, but players have offered a more practical idea of defender-attacker skins. But it’s also not possible, at least for now.

The Black Market bundle has only added to the impatience of fans waiting for attacker-defender-sided skins. After Riot rolled out the unique collection, players couldn’t help but bug Riot to reveal more about the swapping feature. In response, Valorant’s associate art director Sean Marino clarified why attacker-defender skins are challenging.

“Also, weapons are just one part of it all. Every part of the game has a limit and a budget—guns, maps, characters, UI, the game-state itself, audio, etc. Everything has an impact, and the more we add, the more risk we put on someone having a bad time,” he said.

Why does Valorant not have attacker-defender skins

According to Riot, the main goal is to get players into the server as quickly as possible, and adding more cosmetic details will increase load time. It’d further increase the minimum requirements to play Valorant, leaving a large chunk of the player base out.

If Riot does introduce an attacker-defender skin feature, they’d have to load up all 300+ skins before each game if all ten players swap out variants for each side. This would put significantly more pressure on player builds, causing unexpected glitches and delays in load time. So, until Riot figures out a workaround, side-specific variants will stay a pipe dream for fans.

“We are already decently strict on how much available memory the game takes up based on our hardware specs. if we raised that requirement, we could cut out a significant number of players at the minimum bar for hardware, which is not good.” Marino said.

However, the developer was open to adding skin variants for each agent. It’d also impact memory, but at least skins won’t be different each time a player loads into the game. The agent information would be stored in the account, allowing the build to take time to process the new date.

For now, players must settle with the Black Market bundle that switches appearance for the attacker and defender sides.

Fariha Bhatti

About Fariha Bhatti

Fariha Bhatti is a long-time gaming writer who loves competitive FPS games and slots with particularly fun themes. She got her start playing classic games developed by SNK, from legendary fighting game series The King of Fighters to challenging platform franchise Metal Slug. She now spends most of her time playing Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 while working her way through new slot releases to find her next favorite. Fariha has been published at PCGamesN, TalkEsport and ONE Esports.

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