Widespread audio issues create phantom VALORANT agents in latest update

Riot Games quietly released a minor VALORANT patch last week that seems to have brought about major side effects for some players. In particular, affected users are hearing “phantom” agents and annoyingly random sound effects playing throughout matches.

Patch 7.06 was shipped on Sept. 19, adding new competitive queue restrictions, a new home screen animation featuring Gekko and his squishy friends, and some new Sage voice lines, according to the blog post from Riot. However, numerous players have since reported significant audio issues that are skewing the normal expectations for both agent voice lines and ability sound effects.

The issues that seem to be appearing most for players concern death noises that teammates make upon being taken down in a round. Each agent has a unique voice line when they die, usually a sort of grunt or short cry. Yet, there seems to be a considerable mix-up with the latest patch, and the wrong agent’s death noise is being broadcast to the team.

“I heard an Omen death grunt when our Sage died even though there was no Omen on any of the teams,” one player commented, with others also chiming in hearing the wrong agent’s death rattle as they go down.

VALORANT has an immersive communication system that goes beyond just your team’s voice chat. Agents not only have death noises but also voice lines or other sound indicators for most of their abilities. This way, even if a teammate isn’t using voice chat, you still receive an audio queue to decipher their intentions.

This system is employed by giving each agent some sort of in-ear communication device, like a radio or phone system that connects them to their teammate agents. This means even if your Brimstone uses his ultimate ability on the opposite side of the map, you’ll still hear his voice line in your “ear” over the radio.

One player suggested the reason people had been hearing KAY/O’s voice when a non-robot teammate died was because the sound of their voice over comms was slightly distorted, making the death grunt sound robotic.

However, a slew of other players chimed in and reported other audio issues that weren’t present in their game before Patch 7.06 that have nothing to do with agent voice lines at all.

“Something is definitely up with the audio on the latest patch,” another player commented, noting their experience with a Sova sound bug where they continuously heard a scan ping that didn’t go away until the teams switched sides, meaning four to five rounds of random pinging.

It seems that in addition to agent voice lines, ability audio queues are also being affected by this bug. Hopefully, Riot will address the bug or put out a quick fix in a new patch soon, because we can’t imagine how distracting a continuous Sova dart scan or Raze Boombot noise would be.