Valorant app that instalocks agents has been shut down by Riot

Jeremy Gan
Reyna in Valorant cinematic

A Valorant app that instalocks agents faster than any human can has been shut down by Riot as the devs tighten down on unauthorized third-party apps.

A games developer, Julian Dunskus, responsible for the Recon Bolt companion app for Valorant, has announced their project has been delisted from the app store after a cease and desist was sent their way.

Recon Bolt was originally created by Dunskus as a way for Valorant players to view their competitive rank changes. However, over time the app evolved into giving players the ability to instalock agents, among other features. 

On July 20, according to a Discord screenshot shared online, Dunskus revealed he had received a cease and desist letter from Riot, threatening to take him to court if he doesn’t take down the app.

https://twitter.com/wafhuw/status/1680783105890701312?s=20

“Remember [that] bad news from two months ago? Well, it’s gotten worse,” Dunskus said in the message. “I’ve officially received a cease and desist letter from Riot, threatening to take me to court if I don’t take down the app and its GitHub page.”

He continues, “They’ve given me a deadline of July 27 to do so, and I’ve decided to take it down with a week to spare, on July 20.” 

Recon Bolt could do various things for Valorant player that many other companion stat apps like Tracker.gg and Blitz can’t do. For instance, it could track things such as your shop offerings, missions, your loadout, even change your skins out of the game, and of course, instalock agents too. 

Instalocking is a practice in character-based competitive games which sees a player instantly lock a character of their choice without any thought of what the team is doing. Recon Bolt was able to automate this process and do so faster than any human can. 

Riot has warned players in the past about using unauthorized third-party apps which could pull information hidden from the game client, and it seems Riot is now cracking down on them further with this new cease and desist.