Valorant Esports Events will be Forced to Turn Off Blood Effects

Riot Games are known for being the League of Legends guys, but they’re also one of the heavy hitters in the world of eSports. Their League of Legends eSports league, which spans the globe and a good chunk of each year, is one of, if not the biggest eSports organizations in the world. And with the release of both Legends of Runeterra, their digital card game, and Valorant, Overwatch’s and Counter-Strike’s unofficial love child, it seems they’ll have two more games to build leagues around sooner or later.

Valorant, however, has a bit of a snag: in spite of being only rated T, the game will apparently get censored a little bit before it gets any time in the spotlight.

Riot eSports director Whalen “Magus” Rozelle recently sent out guidelines to how to properly host a Valorant eSports event, and while most of it is standard – how to register, maximum prize pool, etc. -- there is one interesting change: all blood effects in the game need to be turned off. In a statement to Kotaku:

“Ultimately, we want our esport to be as accessible as possible, and that includes ensuring it is also as wide reaching as possible. By turning off blood, we allow more sponsors and distributors to join the ecosystem, ultimately, creating more accessibility and stability for everyone. Leading up to the Valorant closed beta launch, we met with more than 100 esports organizations, who by and large, also echoed that sentiment.”

The blood effects in the game are tame by most games' standards, just a puff of red exploding out of a limb with every hit, but it is a jarring change of pace compared to, say, Overwatch, where blood is replaced with cartoon effects and zip-zap noises. League of Legends, also by comparison, doesn’t have ‘blood’, but some of the champions die in rather grotesque ways that’s hard to appreciate most of the time.

So it won’t really take anything from the game, but still, it’s an interesting peek into how eSports work.