Ahead of the upcoming launch of Valorant Act II, Riot Games has launched a new series of extremely flashy in-game punk-style cosmetics known as “Glitchpop” skins. The series replaces the existing Oni skins, which will no longer be available from tomorrow, the 4th of August.
New Valorant Glitchpop Skins & Trailer
The new Valorant Glitchpop skins might well have spawned the game’s wierdest trailer; a riotous, half-cartoon look at the skins in action. The Glitchpop skins will be available to purchase in-game from the 4th of August. In total, the new cosmetic bundle includes skins for the Bulldog, Frenzy, Odin, and Judge firearms, as well as a melee skin. Plus, there are a wide range of Glitchpop Stickers available too. Each one is glaringly neon and over-the-top.
Bought individually, each of the five new Glitchpop weapon skins cost 2,175 VP, except for the melee, which instead costs 4,350 VP. Bought together as a bundle, the total cost for all the skins is 8,700 VP. The high cost has already attracted significant criticism on social media. You can’t buy exactly 8,700 VP from the Valorant Store, but 11,000 VP (the closest amount) will cost you $99.99. Even if you want to buy just one of the single weapon skins, you’d have to get 3650 VP for $34.99. (The bundle below is only 2050 VP – 125 VP off the cost of a Glitchpop weapon skin.)
The Glitchpop skins do go a little further than standard cosmetics, in that they can be levelled up and improved. These level-up improvements include custom muzzle flashes and firing audio, custom reload effects, and logo hologram projections, among other things. However, it’s unclear whether this feature will be enough to sell them to the general Valorant audience. More likely, these sorts of cosmetics are marketed at a tiny wealthy minority of players. Most in-game cosmetics in most games are supported by a very small minority of buyers anyway, but Riot does rather seem to be pushing things to a bit of an extreme.