Valorant Boss Says Toxic Players 'Aren't Welcome' in Its Community as It Commits to Stricter Policies

ign.com:

Riot Games has made clear its stance on toxic players in its multiplayer shooter Valorant, saying those who make "evil statements" against others "aren't welcome here."

In a post on X/Twitter, below, Valorant studio head Anna Donlon said Riot "absolutely needs to do better" in protecting its players from others and outlined changes it's making to do so.

"Too often it takes someone experiencing the worst behaviors — something egregious, something painful, something threatening — for us to better understand where the gaps in our systems and processes are, and that's exactly what we're experiencing and addressing right now," Donlon said.

A message from @RiotSuperCakes about the current state of player behavior and upcoming changes to make our community a better place pic.twitter.com/eiwoGsB930

"We've been working on systems and technologies, and we actually have been making a lot of progress, but having large global player communities presents unique challenges, evolving challenges."

A follow-up post made this message clear: "We are taking actions to improve the state of player behavior in the game. If you want to make evil statements under the guise of 'shit talk,' you aren't welcome here."

To turn things around, Riot said it will finalize updates to existing policies to focus on stronger, faster penalties for severe behavior within the next 30 days. It will also introduce new penalties for harmful player behavior including hardware bans, increase the support for manual reviews to support these policies, expand the rollout of Riot Voice Evaluation to additional regions, and enact a one-time review of the top suspected offenders from the previous act and issue penalties accordingly.

Valorant launched in 2020 as a tactical first-person shooter where teams of five battle with precise gunplay and unique character abilities. In our 9/10 review, IGN said: "Valorant is a clever tactical hero shooter that’s plenty deep, and a lot of fun to master."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance