Fan designs Valorant weapon skin concept inspired by 8-bit retro art

Valorant fan has designed a potential weapon skin for Phantom, inspired by the 8-bit retro art style.

Riot Games first-person competitive shooter Valorant has become a worldwide sensation within the last year. The blend of east to pick up hard-to-master gameplay with free-to-play monetization and low specs requirements makes Valorant a very approachable game. However, one of the most exciting aspects of Valorant is the selection of fantastic weapon cosmetic skins.

Inspired by the art style of old games, Redditor u/RivalRudra has designed a new weapon skin concept, Retro Phantom.

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Retro Phantom is the 8-bit weapon skin Valorant needs

From the dragon-like Elderflame to Cyberpunk-themed Glitchpop to the Victorian steampunk-inspired Magepunk to the Second World War-era arsenal Infantry, Valorant has had some genuinely amazing weapon skin cosmetics.

The Retro Phantom, designed by Redditor u/RivalRudra, takes its inspiration from the 1980-90 era 8-bit 2D video games, such as Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Pac Man, to name a few.

The red and white 2D pixelated design, paired with the sound design and concept animation, evokes nostalgia. The side-mounted display shows different words like “POW”, “BASH”, “KILL”, and “1UP” based on the action.

Redditor u/RivalRudra has also designed three different variants, dark blue and orange, pink and gray, and sky blue and white. The muzzle false also varies based upon the variant equipped.

The separate floating parts design is quite an interesting take, along with the unique reload animation.

Regarding the design Redditor, u/RivalRudra said,

This time, I have created a skin concept which is themed upon.......old videogames? Yeah, that's right. Behold, the Retro Phantom. It features various design elements from retro videogames like the Blocky-pixelated body, pixelated VFX and retro fighting game popups (which appear when ya used to punch somebody. Stuff like pow, bash, kill, etc.). I have also tried to make my presentation a bit cleaner

Huge design inspiration from the Future Rifle from Pixel Gun 3D, with my added twists

The sound design for the kills is done by Redditor u/Lankre, which presents a unique blend of 8-bit sounds paired with more modern sound effects.

It would certainly be interesting to see how the design translates to the 3D environment if Riot decides to adopt the Retro Phantom for an upcoming skin set, possibly based around the retro theme.