Riot devs respond to backlash over Valorant karambit skin and promise new feature

Riot devs have announced a new ‘level toggle’ feature will be introduced to Valorant skins after they received backlash over the equip animation for the Prime//2.0 karambit melee.

Weapons cosmetics are crucial part of Valorant, allowing players to customize their guns and melees to show off an achievement or the depth of their wallet.

Uniquely, Valorant allows players to ‘level up’ their skins using an in-game currency called Radianite. Leveling up a gun or melee unlocks new animations, sound effects and visuals, allowing guns to be customized beyond purchasing the base skins.

The release of Act Two brought new skins with it, including the Prime//2.0 Range. The highlight of this bundle was arguably the karambit knife, which – at level one – would deliver a slick spinning animation when equipped.

However, while upgrading the knife to level two would add an electric effect, the spinning equip animation was ditched for a flick open, and some players were not happy.

New ‘level toggle’ system announced for Valorant skins

In a Reddit Q&A, Valorant Game Producer Preeti Khanolkar and Premium Content Art Lead Sean ‘oniram177’ Marino explained why they are not adding the spinning equip animation to Level 2 of the Prime//2.0 karambit skin, but announced some form of “level toggling” system would be available by the end of 2021.

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“We typically don’t make changes to live products unless competitive integrity is violated because some players did purchase/upgrade that skin due to its existing design,” they said.

“We are investigating what a skin level toggle system would look like and as a result of these discussions, we are committing to shipping a feature that addresses that this year.

Valorant devs discussed a level toggling system prior to the game’s launch, but explained in July 2020 that they had other priorities.

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“A system like this takes time to build and means that the engineers working on it aren’t tackling other equally important gameplay needs,” they said.”All that said, we recognize the value in Skin Level Toggling, and it’s something we want to invest in.”

But with Valorant now in a much more stable position, Riot will be much better prepared to focus on the more ‘nitty gritty’ aspects of the game.