Riot Games confirms plans to deal with sexist harassment in Valorant after one of its developers shares her experience of abuse within the game. A survey from last month revealed that in Riot's other popular multiplayer title, League of Legends, 98% of players have faced some form of harassment.
On Twitter, League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics UX designer Riot Greenily shared a video of a recent Valorant match. A teammate of Greenily's could be heard calling the designer "babe," trying to flirt with her. In several other tweets, Riot Greenily revealed that the same player had shouted "oh my god, it's a girl!" the second he'd heard her voice and "acted like I was his girlfriend throughout the whole game." Greenily, who was playing as Valorant support character Sage, muted him, but was force to heal him because she was trying to win the game.
The Valorant closed beta has been available to players for less than a month but responses to Greenily's tweets confirm that this is a common occurrence. Katie Chironis, a senior game designer at Riot said that she has managed to reduce levels of harassment in the game by adding "#RIOT" to her handle. A Valorant player called Kirsty said that the level of sexist abuse that she gets over voice comms in the game is "disgusting."
However, it seems that Riot Games is planning to do something about it. Anna Donlon, who is an executive producer on Valorant, called the video "gross," "creepy as hell" and revealed that experiences like that are why she doesn't play in solo queue. Donlon also said that the Valorant development team is "absolutely looking into long-term solutions for making it safe to play."
It's unclear what these solutions will look like and if it could mean better player reporting tools or an honor system like in League of Legends. Players do seem confident that Donlon and the team will make good on this though as Riot has also been banning Valorant cheaters and offering huge amounts of money to people who find bugs in the game. This suggests that Riot really is looking at making the game better for everyone.
Valorant isn't the only multiplayer game to have a harassment problem. A study by the Anti-Defamation League revealed that 74% of adult gamers face harassment in games with League of Legends, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which Valorant has been compared to, being some of the worst titles for this abuse.
Valorant launches this summer on PC.