The Riot Games declaration of VALORANT’s 5-year-long celebration event triggered those players who, let’s just say, weren’t really partying beneath the comments. The official tweet was just hinting towards some special event and meant to be linked with more information about it. Meanwhile, the reactions from the community have ranged from nostalgic into sarcasm, and then downright disappointed.
For the first thing: yes—VALORANT is five years old. Crazy right? Feels like yesterday that we all were arguing about Jett being nerfed or not and if Phoenix’s flashes were ever useful. But instead of maybe showering players with free skins or something good in-game, the big celebration from Riot looks like it will be… a custom Discord role. Yeah. That!
Would be the classic back-and-forth roasting of the announcement, really. One player @BugToGunBuddy simply stated, “Not even a gun buddy as a reward,” while @Proutmann facetiously replied with clown emojis, “Custom role on val discord 🤡🤡.” And in all fairness, after five years of grinding ranked, buying overpriced skins, and smurfing, a Discord role feels like a pair of socks for Christmas.
There’s some love left, though. Reflecting, @vyrixo said, “5 years already? damn, i remember when valorant first came out. time flies.” True! The road from beta for the game has been long: from new agents to new maps to an immensely growing esports scene. But that’s also why the celebration feels underwhelming; where are the celebrations for all the casual players that held VALORANT up?
Then there are those weirdly specific requests. @ezetavasci asks, “Can I smell neons clothes?” (???) and @Just_a_Hazel wonders if Neon would “sit on my lap while I look around.” Look, VALORANT’s characters are iconic, but maybe, folks, maybe keep it PG.
The bigger complaint? The event seems to be all about esports clips rather than lore or moments of gaming community. @Standard_human9 pointed out, “So out of 9 [clips], 4 of them are related to esports… you couldn’t even dedicate this to the lore and the community holy sht dude.” And @symatrahatepage added, “They could’ve put more related to lore or past updates? They had to make over half of them VCT?”
So what’s actually in the event? Looks like a virtual museum-type display about VALORANT’s history-esports, updates, and “community moments” (though some players are arguing really lacking). Then there’s that Discord role to be won, which again… not exactly the rarest drop.
Will this celebration win back any of the doubters? Not on your life. But hey, better than nothing, right? Or maybe Riot has a wild card to play here. Lots of other players will just keep begging for that map maker (see @Hypl08 is still waiting for one). Happy five years to VALORANT, anyway. Here’s hoping for another five years full of glitched ranked systems and overpriced knife skins.
And if you’re still wondering, get all of the event details at the link in Riot’s tweet. Just don’t expect all that much. Or do. We ain’t your mama.
