Q&A with the developers:
What were your goals when designing Glitchpop?
ANSWER: Similar to last year’s Glitchpop skins, we wanted these five new weapons to feel like they fit right in with the bright, loud, colorful, and dystopian world of Glitchpop. A player looking back at the first and second set of Glitchpop skins side-by-side shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two skin lines in terms of quality, cohesion, and fantasy. And a player who has bought both skin sets should feel really great about outfitting almost all of their guns with Glitchpop! We think there might be a lot of these players, so this new Glitchpop set includes a brand-new accessory bundle. Last year, our senior artists Sean Bigham and Chris Stone did a very thorough deep dive into the goals of Glitchpop, which you can read about here.
Thank you: Sean Marino, Art Lead
Any unexpected challenges or novelty stories you’d like to share when designing Glitchpop?
ANSWER: When we started work on the first Glitchpop set in 2019, we were still very early in our skin development. That’s why Glitchpop doesn’t have any of our high play-rate skins (like a Vandal, Phantom, or Operator). By the end of 2019, when the skins were about half-way done, many of us wished that we could go back in time to add one of those three guns to Glitchpop but it was too late. Finally, we decided to take a bet on Glitchpop and started making 5 more weapons for the theme even though the first Glitchpop (and VALORANT itself) still had not been released. We hoped that the first Glitchpop set would be enough of a hit that players would want more guns in the theme, so we went ahead and added not just a Vandal or Phantom or Operator but ALL THREE. And I’m glad we did! Since the first Glitchpop set launched, we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from players asking us to specifically add those three guns to the Glitchpop line so we’re hopeful that we did the right thing! It’s been hard to keep it a secret and ignore messages we get from players asking for more Glitchpop guns, especially since we’ve known it’s in the works and it was something we wanted too!
Thank you: Preeti Khanolkar, Producer