VALORANT: Riot Games Reveals Upcoming Recon Skinline Featuring The Butterfly Knife


Valorant Riot Games reveals recon skinline

The Recon skin line is finally coming to VALORANT in Episode 3 Act 1. Just a few weeks ago, Riot Games officially announced that the current act will be extended till 8th September 2021.

This was followed by the announcement of a new military-inspired skin collection coming to the game. Fans have been waiting for this a long time, as the Recon skin line features a unique Butterfly Knife.

Here is everything you need to know about the upcoming Recon skin line in VALORANT.

Release Date

The Recon skin line is scheduled to arrive in VALORANT on 24th August 202. The new skin bundle will be a premium edition military-inspired cosmetic line that gives players the visuals of fully kitted out guns with all the bells and whistles in attachments.

The attachments do not offer any gameplay change or benefit; they are 100% cosmetic and just-for-fun.

Price

The price for the entire Recon Skin line is going to be 7,100 VP. This will include all the weapons as well as the Butterfly Knife.

Weapon and Levels

The Recon skin line will feature the following weapons:

  • Phantom
  • Balisong (Butterfly Knife Melee)
  • Ghost
  • Spectre
  • Guardian

Guns

  • Level 1 - Custom model and ADS reticle
  • Level 2 - Randomized Side Attachments (do not change gameplay or give any advantage; are purely cosmetics)
  • Level 3 - Randomized Bottom Attachments (do not change gameplay or give any advantage; are purely cosmetics)
  • Level 4 - Kill Banner
  • Variant 1 - Red Camouflage
  • Variant 2 - Blue Camouflage
  • Variant 3 - Green Camouflage

Balisong (Butterfly Knife Melee)

  • Level 1 - Custom Model
  • Level 2 - Custom Animations and Audio
  • Variant 1 - Red Camouflage
  • Variant 2 - Blue Camouflage
  • Variant 3 - Green Camouflage

Developers' Inspiration

The developers revealed what inspired them to design this new military-themed skin line for VALORANT weapons.

VALORANT art lead, Sean Marino, shared some of the novelty stories and goals while designing the new Recon skin line.

What were your goals when designing Recon?

Way early on in Valorant’s development we experimented around with having attachments similar to what you might see in a more mil-sim or grounded shooter.

While the idea of attachments for gameplay purposes didn’t make its way through to the final game, there has always been a select few on the team who really loved the look of grounded military weapons that were kitted out with various attachments.

Recon is our attempt to capture that fantasy of being in a more traditional modern shooter, having a gun that feels more representative of something you might see in modern combat.

What did you take inspiration from / any notable concepts you wanted to convey with Recon?

We had a goal with the base guns in Valorant to be relatable, grounded and realistic, but there's definitely a fine line between what we’ve done for our weapons and what players are used to from other shooters.

We wanted to dive into the experience that players get from games like PUBG, Rainbow Six, and others to give that feeling of a fully kitted out gun with all the bells and whistles in attachments.

Any unexpected challenges or novelty stories you'd like to share when designing Recon?

Recon naturally was one of the more highly anticipated skins we were developing due to the fact that it has a butterfly knife. We always knew that this would be a thing we would give players and it was really incredible to see it all come together with this skin.

We spent a lot of time looking at videos of butterfly knife tricks, seeing how other games have implemented them and really just dug deep into delivering on an awesome experience. We just kept building on it every step of the way, knowing, of course, we would have the flair of flipping the knife around in the equip and inspect, but eventually, we said “let's just add it to everything!” and included it as part of the attacks when the weapon comes back to rest.

Because the skin is something that is a bit more grounded we had to strike that balance of the animations being interesting and fun but not too playful and over the top. Once we had all of the animations in place it was just really fun for everyone to walk around in-game spamming their equips, inspects and attacks to just watch the knife spin and flip in the character’s hands.

For more articles like this, take a look at our Valorant, Gaming News, and PC Gaming pages.