Riot disables several VALORANT skins due to wall hack glitch

The pay-to-win era is already over.

Pink Mystbloom Phantom in VALORANT
Image via Riot Games

VALORANT players recently discovered that several of the game’s weapon skins, including the newest Mystbloom skin, allowed them to see the outline of enemy players through walls. In response, Riot temporarily disabled some of the upgrade levels for a handful of skins today.

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“Some levels” have currently been disabled for Mystbloom, Magepunk 3, Imperium, and Primordium skins, and a hotfix for the newest Mystbloom skin has been scheduled for deployment later today. Riot is currently working on fixes for the other VALORANT skin lines.

With these skins in hand, players discovered that by using the inspect weapon animation, the visual effects on the weapon highlighted outlines of enemy players through walls, provided the player was close enough to the wall.

Team Liquid streamer AverageJonas was one of the first influencers to post a viral clip that showcased the Mystbloom skin’s accidental wall hack buff, which left the streamer almost speechless. VALORANT‘s lead producer for cosmetics quickly replied to Jonas, thanking him and the community for catching the unintentional effect.

Naturally, players instantly went to the training range with a plethora of other premium skins to see if the accidental wall hack buff affected any other weapons, discovering it on the Magepunk 3, Imperium, and Primordium skins. VCT Americas organization Sentinels jokingly posted that it had affected their Classic skin, but it appears that none of the VCT skins appear to actually be impacted.

Thankfully for players, VALORANT‘s incidental and inadvertent introduction of pay-to-win skins was quickly caught by the community and may not have attributed to too many swings in rank rating before the skins were disabled. Riot has insisted and assured players that it would never purposefully introduce any pay-to-win skins or mechanics into VALORANT, though almost every VCT team will claim their Classic skin will improve your aim.

Despite being currently disabled, the full Mystbloom bundle is still available for purchase in the store.

Author
Image of Scott Robertson
Scott Robertson
VALORANT lead staff writer, also covering CS:GO, FPS games, other titles, and the wider esports industry. Watching and writing esports since 2014. Previously wrote for Dexerto, Upcomer, Splyce, and somehow MySpace. Jack of all games, master of none.