Riot explains the developer team’s struggles with creating VALORANT’s Elderflame skins

Who knew that creating guns that look like actual, living dragons could be such a hassle?

Riot Games recently unveiled its newest skin line headed to VALORANT, called Elderflame. But in an interview with Polygon, the team revealed that it was the hardest skin line to create.

One of the biggest concerns that players have voiced, for example, is the ability to identify the weapons in-game, whether they’re in someone’s hand or on the ground.

It’s one of the most basic features of a gun and yet it’s also one of the most important since players need to spot out weapons quickly while walking around a map. But Riot said it’s been tinkering with the skin line’s silhouettes to prevent any confusion.

“We tried creative things like with the Frenzy and we’re like, ‘How can we fit a dragon into this situation?’ and we found a cool opportunity to take its tail, and wrap it around the bottom of the magazine to put it into the correct shape,” Riot art lead Sean Marino said. “That way, if someone sees it on the ground, they immediately know what it is, and if you see it in first person you know what it is.”

Riot also had to make sure that each skin didn’t take up any more space than other cosmetics to ensure “competitive integrity.” Each dragon skin had to be complex and unique without taking up more screen space than the other skins available.

Even if there wasn’t anything unbalanced about the skins, Riot still had to make them feel balanced. One example of this is how the play-test group complained that taking out a gun with an Elderflame skin felt longer than other weapon skins. As a result, Riot had to continuously test this to get the perfect feeling for players.

The Elderflame skin line is set to release in VALORANT on Friday, July 10.