Neon is the latest VALORANT Agent released in Episode 4 Act 1. Neon’s release coincides with Zeri’s in League of Legends. Some fans theorize that Zeri and Neon are actually one character -- based on their designs, abilities, and voice actor: Vanille Velasquez.

In regard to Neon, Riot Games, the developers of the game, shared their thoughts on this Agent. They revealed how this Agent was designed, the purpose behind it, to the challenges they faced during the development.

The Design’s Objective

John “Riot_MEMEMEMEME” Goscicki, said in a QnA that the concept of the design for Neon is speed. The design is also inspired by sportswear, especially track and field. The devs also found the right foundation for some unique movements within her lightning.

"Speed, everything about Neon came back to that feeling of running forward and moving fast. A lot of her design was inspired by athleisure clothing, sprinting gear, and a runner's physique. We also looked into the kind of bioelectricity you see deep in the ocean. This provided us with a nice foundation for some unique shapes and movements within her lightning," said John “Riot_MEMEMEMEME” Goscicki.

Whereas Ryan “rycou” Cousart mentioned that the creation of Neon aims to come up with an Agent who can move fast with her utilities to support her. The idea originally came up from the League of Legends’ Lead Champion Designer, August Browning.

"Everything on her kit had two words we kept going back to on the design side to keep it cohesive. These were ‘fast’ and ‘frenetic’. I remember when August Browning (League of Legends’ Lead Champion Designer) had originally come to us with this idea for having an Agent with the ability to sprint fast on a basic ability—I had lots of reasons why I thought it would be an insurmountable amount of work to achieve it.

The goal we had aligned on for Neon was that she would move fast and her utility should supplement. After seeing how far it had gone with Jay Watford (Game Designer) and August before I hopped on to take it to the finish line, I was so excited to see how well we had hit the goal of having abilities that pair well with going fast that it left the prototype phase with basically the same kit!" he said.

Challenges

In every huge project, developers have to deal with some challenges, and that’s also the case for Riot Games. During the development of VALORANT’s Neon, the devs had to deal with some issues, including messy body textures -- or even Neon’s face appearing on her hands. They would later call this accident "face hands".

"I will never forget when a material swap broke Neon for a day so that every time we fired her ult, her body texture would become a mess. It was such a mess, to the point where her face would appear on her hands when we fired her ult. That day became known as ‘face hands’," said Riot_MEMEMEMEME

Interestingly, the error caused by rycosu actually led to an unexpected thing as it gave a better casting paradigm for Neon. He unintentionally deleted the part that was supposed to make the projectiles from Relay Bolt stop upon contact with walls. This actually made Relay Bolt looks cooler as it looks like a lightning bolt.

"When looking for ways to tune the Relay Bolt, there were very good ability options, but we wanted to find something that would feel right with her frenetic gameplay. While making changes to the projectiles’ logic, I unintentionally removed the part that was supposed to make the projectiles stop upon contact with walls or surfaces, and was surprised when the bolt rapidly bounced between walls during the trial.

It felt like a lightning had struck. So, I made some videos and sent them to August and Jay that night to ask for their opinion. In the same way with Yoru’s Blindside, we found a better casting paradigm thanks to my recklessness," said rycou.

Well, as it turns out, there were so many unexpected things during the development of the newest VALORANT’s Agent, Neon. So, aren’t you excited to try the newest Agent?

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