Valorant has stirred the emotions of the community with expensive dragon skins for 95 euros, similar to how fire-breathing dragons do to their opponents. However, the hefty sum for acquiring the Elder Flame Bundle is not the end of it. With the in-game upgrades, the total rises to nearly three times!
What do the dragons and their upgrades cost? When Riot Games introduced the new skins from the “Elder Flame” edition, many players were excited. Because the skins transform your weapons Judge, Operator, Vandal, and Frenzy into living dragons.
But fans were taken aback by the price immediately. Because the whole package costs around 95 euros! That was too much for some players, including many readers here at MeinMMO. But it gets worse.
Now that the skins are finally in the shop, first customers have looked at the upgrades. So if you want all animations and extras, you have to buy so-called Radianite Points. And they cost real money too! For all upgrades, another 187.96 euros are due. With the purchase price of the bundle, that totals up to 282.96 euros!
Why the Total Package is So Expensive
What do the upgrades do? Those who buy the expensive dragon skins only get static weapons that look like dragons at first. They don’t do anything, don’t glow, make no special sounds, and have no finishing move.
To get all of this, you need to buy upgrades per weapon with Radianite Points. The upgrades and their costs per weapon are:
| Upgrade | Cost |
| Variant 3 | 15 points |
| Variant 2 | 15 points |
| Variant 1 | 15 points |
| Finishing Move | 10 points |
| Animations | 10 points |
| Sound and Visual Effects | 10 points |
So, you need 75 Radianite points per weapon to unlock all upgrades and turn the skin into the fully animated, wriggling, and hissing dragons that you saw in the videos. With four weapons in the set, that means a total of 300 points are needed. Additionally, you need another 10 points for the knife upgrade. So you need a total of 310 Radianite points. A user on reddit has calculated all of this.
Why is it so expensive? Radianite Points are the in-game currency that you can also earn in the game via the Battle Pass. However, if you buy them, you first have to exchange them for the real currency “Valorant Points.”
For the needed 310 Radianite points, you need 19,200 Valorant Points. Those cost you around 187.96 euros. However, if you are diligent and have not spent the points elsewhere, you can at least earn 150 Radianite Points from the Battle Pass. Nevertheless, in the end, it’s a lot of money. Therefore, a reddit user also sarcastically remarked, “Riot recognized the problem with microtransactions and instead introduced macrotransactions!”
Conclusion: So, if you don’t just want rather boring, static shooting dragons, you have to spend a lot of money. Even this is too much for me, MeinMMO author and skin freak Jürgen Horn. I am willing to invest 95 euros for a few really nice skins. But through these absurd costs for an upgrade, it’s even too much for me. For that price, I could almost get a half dozen AAA games. I think that for the price of 95 euros, at least the upgrades should be included.
