Riot responds to complaints over footstep audio in Valorant

A good audio cue can be the difference between life and death shooter games. Players listen out for nearby enemies, gunfire, ability usage and spike plants to gather as much information as possible.

Recently, the Valorant community has been particularly vocal about footstep audio. People claim that they often find it impossible to determine the distance or direction of an opponent.

Now, in the latest edition of the “Ask Valorant” developer Q&A series, Riot Games have had their say on the matter.

Rather than apologising or vowing to fix the alleged problem, they explained how the audio works and why it is the best setup for the game.

“We optimize for making sure footsteps are heard, as opposed to optimizing for portraying distance” clarified Peter Zinda, Audio Director for Valorant.

The main reason for this is that with the loud sounds of various abilities regularly ringing out across the map, they don’t want footstep audio to be drowned out. If it was not designed this way, you may not be able to hear someone approaching until it’s too late to react.

Zinda also added that, with Valorant currently being mixed in stereo, “There is no difference between a sound 45 degrees to your left in front of you and a sound 45 degrees to your left in back of you”. This clears up why some players have been left so confused by certain situations.

So, whilst it doesn’t sound like footstep audio will be changing anytime soon, we can assume that Riot has players’ best interests at heart. Potentially somewhere down the line there will be a complete overhaul of the Valorant game sound, but for now, we will have to be happy with what we’ve got.