The Real Reason Valorant Pulled Its Newest Agent

The newest agent to hit "Valorant," Neon, has caused quite a bit of buzz since her announcement video. Fans are already excited to see her quickfire abilities and awesome fashion sense in action, but Neon's making headlines today for another reason: After such feverish anticipation from fans, Riot Games had to pull her immediately after she was released.

On January 11, the official "Valorant" Twitter account announced that Neon had been disabled in any region that had already received the Patch 4.0 update. The speedy agent was just "too fast," as one "Valorant" content creator jokingly pointed out. In truth, the character's super speed was not the actual reason behind Riot's speedy retraction. The character wasn't broken, but Riot Game's release strategy was.

Apparently, Riot accidentally released Neon as an "unlocked Agent," according to the original tweet. In "Valorant," Agents are unlocked once their "contract" has reached a certain level — typically done by completing daily challenges and winning matches. However, from the moment she was released to the public, Neon's contract was automatically fulfilled for everyone playing the game.

In order for a contract to be fulfilled and an Agent unlocked in "Valorant," players have to gain a certain amount of experience. Of course, as a free-to-play game that needs to generate money somehow, players can either grind for that experience or buy out the contract. Naturally, Riot had to quickly pull Neon before too many players snagged her for free, without putting in the hard work or dropping the cold hard cash. As esports org 100 Thieves put it, the character had gone from Neon to "freeon."

One Twitter user commented on this by saying that Riot "really need[s] them 10 bucks," which is the cost of an agent. Others were quick to argue similar points, saying that free Agents should be a "standard" part of the game. Another user explained that the amount of people who purchase Agents makes up a decent amount of money for Riot, also noting that Agents cost a bit more in other areas of the world.

Other fans complained about the North American servers instead, remarking that server issues have made it so they're unable to log into the game, much less buy an agent. Either way, it looks like Riot Games nipped this problem in the bud before it could get too out of hand, and players can go back to earning Neon the way the company intended.