Speaking to Polygon, Valorant’s executive producer Anna Donlon confirmed that the game won’t have loot boxes but it will have other forms of microtransactions. Just like Riot Games’ other title, League of Legends, Valorant will sell cosmetic items such as weapon skins and sprays. These cosmetic items can be earned by playing the game, bought from the store, or gained through the game’s battle pass.
RELATED: Riot Games’ Competitive FPS Valorant Gets Summer Release Date
The game will have a “couple of different progression systems,” said Donlon, and Valorant’s weapon skins will be upgradeable, though the producer didn’t offer any more information about it. Games like Overwatch do have sprays, and there are skins that change the look of a character’s weapon, however, the decision to make Valorant’s weapon skins upgradeable could be a good way to help distinguish the two games. Valorant has been heavily compared to the Blizzard game, so differentiation will be important.
Riot Games will not offer character skins at launch, either. Any character skins added to the game “would have to be in a way that there’s absolutely nothing to impact the gameplay.” Riot Games has designed each of Valorant’s playable characters in a special way, so players’ eyes are drawn upwards, to a character’s torso and head. This is why the legs of the characters look more boring compared to the rest of their bodies.
In a lawsuit, PUBG Corp. admitted that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds skins do affect character gameplay. The cause of that lawsuit wasn’t because skins affect gameplay, but it is something that developers and players have been thinking much more about.
Character skins are something that Riot is “interested in exploring” and Riot has teased other post-launch updates to the game such as new Valorant characters and maps. However, if adding new skins will somehow change a character’s hitbox or how easy it is for other players to take them down, it seems very unlikely that they will be added to the game.
Valorant will launch sometime during Summer 2020 for the PC.
MORE: Fortnite: 5 Best Skins In The Game (& The 5 Worst)
Source: Polygon
