Riot dev explains why Valorant’s new headshot sound hasn’t been reverted

Valorant players will have to put up with newly-implemented headshot noise for a little longer, Riot developer Nathan ‘Fancypmcgee’ Tiras has revealed, after confirming the fix planned for Patch 0.49 “failed” when the update went live.

Valorant had another patch go out this week, and it all seemed pretty positive ⁠— until players dropped into live matches. It was then that fans realized Riot had made the call to secretly tweak headshot noises… and they hated it.

One fan suggested it sounded “like scraping a knife across a metal plate.” Others begged the devs to reconsider reverting the change to the “ satisfying” original noise. Soon, the Reddit feedback post about the change had exploded.

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To Riot’s credit, they responded quickly. It took just half a day before the dev team confirmed a new hotfix was on the way on April 30 to revert the change. The news was, of course, well received by the Valorant community.

• Read more: Riot and Twitch crackdown on fake Valorant drop streams

Except, when April 30 rolled around and patch 0.49 landed, the same new “uncomfortable” headshot sound greeted them. According to Riot, it’s because the planned change ⁠simply “failed” when they loaded it onto live servers.

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Riot’s Nathan ‘Fancypmcgee’ Tiras admitted the fix had “failed” when they loaded it onto live servers in North America. He added the issue was still under investigation. On top of that, he had more bad news: it wouldn’t be quick.

• Read more: Valorant leak reveals unreleased agent “Bombshell”

“While we investigate what went wrong with our dev process, we’ll be keeping this audio SFX [the 0.47 change] for the duration of the patch, and will evaluate how we want it to sound going forward,” he explained, and apologized for “the miss.”

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This isn’t the first time Riot has responded to community backlash recently either. On April 28 the devs found themselves under fire for selling “straight re-skins” at high prices. They refused to drop prices, however.

Valorant has also had a big week even without the headshot drama. The title’s ranked queue went live for the very first time, and players have gotten their first look at the next Agent that could be added to the roster: Bombshell.