On the occasion of the release of the brand new Ion Skins in Valorant, we sat down with Producer Preeti Khanolkar and Art Lead Sean Marino to discuss their daily lives and responsibilities. Discover the new skins and the process behind their creation in this exclusive interview.
Several days ago, MGG had the opportunity to meet with Producer Preeti Khanolkar and Art Lead Sean Marino from the Valorant team. They are responsible for the cosmetics in the FPS from Riot Games, such as the brand new Ion Skins, which we can now exclusively showcase.
Their work is extremely valuable to Riot. Their consistency in the quality of cosmetics in Valorant speaks for itself – a look at the Elderflame collection makes this clear. We were curious to learn about the work of Riot’s cosmetic department, so Preeti and Sean generously lent us their time to give us a glimpse behind the scenes.
Where does the inspiration for the Ion Skins come from?
“I would say they are a mix of Iron Man’s armor, Daniel Simon’s automotive design, the motorcycle from TRON, and the bubble ship from the movie Oblivion.
We looked at a number of ‘Industrial Sci-Fi’ inspirations and ultimately focused more on these four examples.”
Has your work on skins changed the look of the base game?
“Yes! We knew we were going to create a wide variety of skins, so it was important that the base weapons meet strict specifications.
All weapons must have a unique shape so that players can recognize them regardless of their skin – the long nose of the Phantom, the round magazine of the Judge, for example – but they must also be as simple as possible so that players can easily interact with them.
That’s why the weapons are matte black and unornamented by default – because they are the perfect blank canvas on which to draw. Ironically, the existence of skins has had a huge impact on skinless weapons.”
How many people work in the cosmetics department?
“We are far fewer than you might think! [Laughs] People perceive Riot as a huge company, but the Valorant team isn’t that large, and when you only count the skin department, there are probably between 20 and 30 of us.”
How long did it take to create the Ion Skins?
“One year! We started working on them on November 11, 2019, and they will be available in the shop on November 11, 2020, exactly a year later. It seems like a very long time, but we work on many series of skins at the same time – and creating a series takes a long time!”
What is the process for creating a series of skins from start to finish?
“First, we have an idea, like ‘I want Sci-Fi weapons,’ and then we choose a weapon from the game. It could be any weapon, and we try to dress it up according to our idea. Then we draw from a thousand sources of inspiration and test a bunch of skins until this weapon with its skin truly represents the idea we had. This first phase takes two to three months. Then we send the weapon to the rest of the team and tell them to do the same with three or four other weapons.
Once the series is complete, we still have to spend several months testing the skins to ensure they are not pay-to-win or buggy – and there are tons of bugs! For example, we recently introduced the option to carry the weapon on the left side, and we found that the visual effects of the ion weapons remained on the right side when the left-handed option was enabled. We fixed that just in time!
Once everything is running smoothly, we still have to coordinate with marketing to figure out how we will promote the skins, whether we will shoot a promo video and if so, in what style. To get everything perfect, it can easily take a whole year.”
If you select three or four weapons for each series, do you choose them based on their popularity?
“Popularity plays a role, yes. That’s why players were surprised at the beginning of Act 1 to receive so many skins for the Guardian. It’s because the Guardian was very popular during the beta phase, so we started preparing multiple skins for it back then.
But we also sometimes choose weapons that are not popular, just because it’s important to distribute skins across all weapons. If all packs contained Phantom/Vandal/Operator skins, players would buy one and never care for the others!
And sometimes just out of artistic sensibility. The Glitch-Hop weapons are not the most popular, but they fit extremely well with the cyberpunk theme of the series. There couldn’t have been any other weapons.”
Speaking of Pay-to-Win: Have you ever changed a skin because it was too strong or too weak?
“That happens to us quite often, but contrary to what players might think, it’s often because it’s uncomfortable for them and rarely because it’s pay-to-win. Often you have an incredible idea in your head, but once it’s in the game, there’s too much light and too many colors – players see nothing. It’s horrifying, which is why most skins are scrapped before they come into the game.
Some people say, ‘If I want to buy a skin that looks like a disco ball, that’s my problem,’ but everyone in the game might have to pick up your weapon to get a bullet, so it’s very important that no skin is too eccentric. The exception is the knife. No one can pick up the knife, so there’s usually less concern about embellishing the melee weapon with lots of effects.
This also works with inspections. It’s not necessary to inspect a weapon to play, so we’d like to conduct some really crazy inspections in the future. We also wanted the inspection of the Elderflame skins to work in such a way that the dragon could be scratched and start purring. We wanted the dragon to get angry in one out of a hundred cases and breathe flames in the player’s face. We had many ideas, but we had already spent a lot of time on these skins, so we had to scrap the ideas. In the future, we want to use inspections to let our creativity speak for itself!”
Are you currently working on something as big as Elderflame?
“Not at the moment. We would love to, and we have many ideas, but it’s not the right time yet.
Are there series of skins inspired by League of Legends?
“It’s very important for us that players understand that Valorant is its own brand with its own world. If we had immediately offered Bilgewater or Demacia skins, it might not have been clear.
In the future, anything is possible, but for now we’re sticking to a few nods in the maps. Nods can function one way or another – have you closely examined the trailer for the skins from League of Legends PsyOps?
Has your work ever been blocked by the performance of the game?
“Unfortunately, yes. For example, we want to allow players to change their skins in every round or equip a random skin each round. However, the game has some rules, especially the one that ensures it runs at least 30 FPS on less powerful machines. If we had to load all the skins every player has in the game, we could never consistently hit 30 FPS.
On the other hand, it has happened to us that we noticed a bug thanks to a performance issue in the game! Once, one of our testers found himself at 10 FPS while running around with a new skin. Eventually, we found out that every time he re-equipped his weapon, the animations were being layered. This was not visible to the naked eye, but due to the chaining between knife and gun, our tester triggered several dozen animations that were running at the same time. The server was not far from crashing!”
Last question – what is the best-selling skin?
“We don’t know if we have the right to reveal that! [Laughs] The truth is we don’t have the exact numbers, so it doesn’t matter if we try to guess.”
Sean: “I believe it’s Elderflame – it’s the most unique line we’ve made so far.”
Preeti: “I believe it’s Prime – just because that’s the line that arrived first.”
