Valorant Art Director Comments On Endeavor Skin Criticism

On March 23, Matthew Hagg, a professional Call of Duty player known as Nadeshot, expressed disappointment in a viral tweet that a new skin bundle for a weapon in the first-person shooter Valorant didn’t have a ton of alternate colors and special effects. He noted that the new cosmetics had “so much potential” but were ultimately “chalked,” meaning that something is “over.” Valorant developers responded explaining why releasing skins is a lot more complicated than it looks from the outside.


The Endeavor, the weapons skin bundle in question, was recently datamined by Valorleaks. It is part of the “Select Tier,” which means that it’s the least expensive type of skin that you can buy. Individual skins cost around $10, and the entire bundle costs around $34. It might sound like a lot of money until you realize that some of the most expensive Valorant skins run upwards of $30 for an individual skin. Ouch.


Sean Marino, an associate art director on Valorant, wrote on Twitter, “Anything and everything can always be more. We have to make tradeoffs.”


“If we poured 150 percent into everything,” he added, “the team would burn out, the skins would take a lot longer to release, and everything would be insanely expensive.”


Marino cited the forest-themed cosmetic bundle Gaia’s Vengeance as one example of a skin pack that was delayed due to extensive customization options. It had special effects, audio, and colored variants. Valorant released the Protocol bundle, which is a weapons skin pack that costs $119 for the entire collection, this January, but it was originally supposed to go live in 2021. Marino emphasized that the team prioritizes the quality of the cosmetics and that do-overs can sometimes occur during the middle of production.


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