Valorant devs explain what goes into making weapon skins

pcgamesn.com:

If you’ve been playing as much of Riot’s tactical FPS game as we have, you’ll be familiar with the range of Valorant weapon skins on offer to customise your loadout to your personal tastes. Following some criticism on the upcoming Endeavour skin from former Call of Duty pro Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag, though, Valorant’s associate art director Sean Marino has taken to Twitter to speak about their development process and the work that goes into making custom skins.

Nadeshot had expressed disappointment that the new skin bundle, which is part of the game’s lowest-priced “Select tier” of skins, doesn’t come with any alternate colours or special effects. For comparison, while Select skins normally cost 875 VP (~ $10 USD) per skin or 2930/3500 VP (~ $34/$41 USD) per bundle, the flashiest Ultra and Exclusive tiers can run upwards of a whopping 2475 VP (~ $30 USD) per skin or 9900 VP (~ $119 USD) per bundle.

Marino is careful to speak about both the desires of the team and the actual effort required to make some of the flashier ideas come to life in-game. Citing the magical woods-themed Gaia’s Vengeance and sleek military Protocol bundles, which do feature unique special effects, audio changes, and colour variants, Marino noted that both skin bundles were pushed back from their original release dates to ensure they hit the high standards that the team had in mind. He states that sometimes “We get a decent way into production and realise we just weren’t hitting the mark, and have to start over.”

Marino also recognises that every skin has the potential to be developed further, but that this isn’t always practical, and that tradeoffs have to be made. The team at Valorant is relatively small, Marino says, and hiring more people isn’t a