While it might be lacking in maps, modes, and playable characters when compared with the rest of the tactical shooter genre, there’s no other game that does weapon skins quite like Valorant. From eye-popping artistry to addictive sound effects, Riot Games has produced some of the most elaborately crafted designs ever seen in gaming.
But which are the best Valorant skin bundles so far? Which justify the eye-watering price tags that are worth flipping the bill for and enduring a week of bread and water for the bragging rights?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course; your mileage is going to vary on which you personally think are prettiest. Nonetheless, we’re here to give our take on which 10 Valorant skins packs we think feature the best designs, artwork, sound effects, and overall style.
10. Magepunk
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
The first entry on our list is also Valorant’s latest premium skin line, the Magepunk bundle. Premium in looks, that is, though not in price; the Magepunk bundle is the first to drop the price down to what would typically be deemed appropriate for skins without special animations, finishers, and sound effects. We’re certainly not complaining!
However, Magepunk earns its spot not for its affordability, but for its brilliant steampunk-inspired design. Although we would have loved to have seen more popular weapons included, such as the Phantom and Vandal, the artwork and special effects definitely make these worth picking up.
Standouts include the Ghost and the Spectre, the latter featuring an ejection port that rocks backward and forward after firing a round, which is a really neat touch.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Magepunk line is the awesome finisher, which sees enemies caged and then electrocuted in a Leyden Jar.
9. Oni
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
The samurai-inspired Oni skins add a bit of traditional design into Valorant’s near-future dystopia, turning its weapons into pastiches of whimsical fantasy and 19th century Japanese firearms. The weave of the rope lace and the gilded finish of its golden lines are a really nice touch, but it’s obviously the intimidating oni mask that takes center stage.
In terms of its best weapons, the Phantom is definitely a highlight. The Shorty, too, as well as the Bucky, really suit the aesthetic given that they’re more in-line with the sorts of old-school flintlock firearms that incorporated decorative designs hundreds of years ago.
While the sound effects of both the tracers are somewhat on the conservative side, the Oni finisher is among the best in the game. It involves the fallen Agent turning into a spirit donning an Oni mask as it falls backward in defeat.
8. Reaver
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
The Reaver skin bundle has a devilish charm to it that seems to have much of Valorant’s hardcore scene enamoured. It’s easily one of the most popular premium skins seen on servers despite the fact that it’s one of the older ones on this list.
It’s easy to see why though: The otherworldly appearance of Reaver weapons is somewhere between extra-terrestrial and Warhammer 40,000, and the bundle features three of the most popular weapons in Valorant: the Vandal, Op, and the Sheriff. It’s the former that we see crop up most in ranked and pro matches, with the addictive bell sound making each rifle headshot all the sweeter.
7. BlastX
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
It’s fair to say that every weapon skin in Valorant has its own unique style and design, but the BlastX is in a league of its own.
Heavily inspired by Nerf guns, the BlastX skin bundle turns Valorant’s deadly arsenal into foam-dart shooting toy weapons. They come complete with all the animations and sound effects that make you feel as though you’re 10 years old and running around the school playground all over again.
Standout weapons are the Phantom and Spectre, with the former being one of the coolest rifles in the entire game if you ask us. The BlastX knife isn’t quite up to the same standard, though, which is why we’ve not bumped this bundle further up our list. Still, the overall attention to detail across each weapon sees it triumph over arguably more popular bundles like Oni and Reaver.
6. Prime 2.0
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
The Prime 2.0 skin pack takes the futuristic appearance of the original Prime design and cleans up its lines, making it more angular, more aggressive, and arguably the most premium-looking Valorant skin bundle. The weapons look expensive, and like something an art team has spent weeks and weeks crafting.
According to senior weapons designer Chris Stone, the team “took inspiration from many hypercar designs that you’d see in the Geneva Motor Show. Specifically, the exhaust ports and FX interaction on the side of the guns was inspired by car exhaust backfire on high-end cars.”
As you’d expect, the weapons in the bundle are essentially everything that wasn’t included in the original Prime pack. There’s finally a Prime Phantom, for example, as well as a beefy Prime Odin. But for us, the standouts are actually the Frenzy and Bucky, which stand apart as easily the top of their class compared with other premium skin bundles that feature them.
The most appealing weapon, though? That would be the awesome Karambit knife, which looks so darn cool in its pull out animation. Just don’t don’t upgrade it, trust us.
5. Singularity
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
The Singularity skin line looks like something from an alien dimension with its sleek black weapons powered by a strange Martian energy source.
The design is terrific, and the animations are absolutely spectacular. In particular, the Singularity reload animations are superb, with revolver clips sucked into the interior of the Sheriff as if each weapon has its very own gravitational pull. Weapons like the Phantom, meanwhile, appear fragmented during reloading before binding back together again. The sound effects really add to the effect, too.
Perhaps the coolest animation, though, is the Singularity finisher, which sucks its final victim into a gravitational void that pretty much encompasses the entire area in which they die!
As for standout weaponry, the Phantom and Spectre are among the best in their respective classes, and the Singularity Knife is right up there as one of the coolest in Valorant.
4. Glitchpunk 2.0
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
Forget cyberpunk, Glitchpunk is where it’s at! The funky retro-meets-futuristic aesthetic lights every Valorant weapon up like a neon Christmas tree, decorated in all sorts of whacky memorabilia to boot.
This particular skin line is actually the 2.0 version that came out earlier this year, which for once includes both the Vandal and Phantom. There’s also the Op, as well as one of the coolest Classics in the entire game. The knife, too, is transformed into a funky axe.
The fact that there are so many weapons within the pack that players are likely to use extensively is a large part of the reason why we consider Glitchpunk 2.0 such a great bundle.
That, and the designs and animations are just so unique. Unlike, say, the BlastX, which takes inspiration from elsewhere in pop culture, Glitchpop feels like a Valorant original, and we just can’t get enough of it.
Truth be told, we’d love to see the design somehow incorporated into Valorant beyond just a weapon pack — for example, some area of a new map adorned in bright Neon and rainbow-colored unicorns sounds pretty cool if you ask us.
3. Ion
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
The clean, futuristic lines of the Ion skin bundle are a thing of beauty, transforming popular weapons like the Phantom, Op, and Sheriff into space-age technology you’d expect to find in Destiny or Warframe. The appearance of each gun looks all the better once upgraded, too, as the side casing is removed to reveal a spinning blue orb of energy that powers each weapon.
The Ion bundle finds itself so far up the list because we consider that, with the exception of perhaps the knife, each weapon is among the coolest of any premium skin for that particular weapon. The Phantom, Op, Sheriff, and Bucky are just so darn sexy, and the squidgy sound effect for each kill is oh so addictive.
Ion 2.0, anybody?
2. Prime
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
An oldie, but a goodie — the original Prime skins launched in tandem with Valorant making it out of its beta and into its full launch, and they’re still among the most popular premium skins you’ll see in a typical ranked or pro game.
Like the Ion skins, the space-age design is reminiscent of Destiny weaponry with its futuristic look and wolf emblem.
If you ask us, the standard color isn’t actually as good as the yellow variety, which is one of three others each weapon can be upgraded to. Whatever your preference, though, there’s no doubt the design of the Vandal, Spectre, Classic, and Guardian are right up there as the most impressive across any skin bundle.
Another standout feature of the Prime bundle are the awesome tracer and kill sound effects, which pop with an addictive laser-like noise that makes every game of deathmatch all the more thrilling. Oh, and Prime skins have aimbot, or so they say…
Sure, the Prime 2.0 skins might have a plusher finish to them, but for the overall design and the variety of weapons in the original bundle, we say Prime wins out.
1. Elderflame
Best Valorant Skin Bundles
The roaring Elderflame collection is our pick for best Valorant skin bundle, one that probably won’t come as too much of a surprise. After all, has there ever been a more elaborately crafted weapon skin ever seen in multiplayer gaming before? We can’t think of one.
The Elderflame turns each weapon in the bundle into a living, breathing dragon that flies into the palm of your hand and spits out an aggressive inferno of ammunition at the pull of the trigger. The artistry that has gone into the design of each weapon is so incredibly impressive, and the roaring sound effects create this wonderful illusion of extra power.
It’s hard to pick a standout weapon because they’re all so brilliant. Riot’s weapon artists chose a really appropriate arsenal as the Op, Vandal, and Judge, in particular, feel like the perfect candidates to turn into uber-powerful dragons. As for the Frenzy and knife, they both feature two of the coolest animations in the entire game.
The Elderflame’s finisher also ranks as one of our absolute favorites, with a flaming dragon incinerating the final fallen victim in satisfying fashion. Surely, Riot will revisit the Elderflame collection again with a 2.0 version — we might as well pay our respects now and say RIP wallet!
Published: Apr 16, 2021 08:00 am