This weird VALORANT bug breaks Iso’s ultimate, but recreating it is a long shot

In VALORANT, Iso’s unique ultimate lets him unleash an interdimensional arena, pulling the first enemy hit for a one-on-one gunfight. As simple as that sounds, have you ever wondered what would happen if Isos on opposite teams activated Kill Contract on each other at the same time?

In a Reddit post dated Nov. 18, a player named u/BreakawayMeteor posted a clip, showcasing a rather strange outcome of two Iso ultimates overlapping. As it happens, if the timing’s right, Iso players can get themselves pulled into a blank arena and then die.  

To demonstrate what happened, BreakawayMeteor, on Iso, was seen trying to activate Kill Contract on the enemy Iso who was in Bind’s A Short, but was met with a counter ult. All seemed fine until the shields dropped, and they saw no one—no opponent to fight against. What’s more weird is that when BreakawayMeteor died to themselves after the ultimate’s timer expired, the same happened to the enemy Iso, indicating they too were pulled into a blank ult with no one to kill. 

Later in the thread, BreakawayMeteor shared a possible explanation. “I think the enemy iso ulted our Chamber and I ulted the Iso. In the end none of them saw each other lmao,” their comment read, and it’s plausible since Chamber should’ve been the first enemy hit for the enemy Iso’s Kill Contract, as per the video. 

While it does sound hilarious and incredibly difficult (and pointless) to recreate, I’d say this VALORANT bug is a game-breaker. As several players in the thread pointed out, it indicates an anomaly in the game logic. The code can’t decipher how to build two arenas out of three players, so it pulls both Iso’s in blank ultimates. 

Players blamed this occurrence on VALORANT’s server tick rate system, which somehow allowed the overlapping to happen because of a delay on the enemy’s side, but in the absence of an official explanation, I wouldn’t bother much about it. 

The bug might be rare, but it’s definitely confusing and seems a bit unfair as well. Now that it has been brought to light, Riot Games should find ways to eliminate it, especially before Iso hits VALORANT’s pro play meta. You definitely don’t want this to happen in an esports match.