Riot Games’ Valorant developers have disabled Neon on PC after the discovery of a graphical exploit on the PC version of the tactical hero shooter.
Often considered one of Valorant’s most ‘broken’ Agents, the devs promised balance changes to the Agent before her return to play.
The change will also affect esports, as the Agent is disabled for online tournaments, though it is still possible to play on LAN due to in-person admin oversight. That means VCT players will still be able to use Neon despite the Agent’s downtime, starting with the VCT EMEA Stage 1 playoffs.
How the Neon exploit works
Despite Valorant needing kernel-level anti-cheat to play, the exploit is still usable when running Riot’s Vanguard anti-cheat, as it’s not technically a cheat.
Instead, it uses NVIDIA graphics settings to lower the Level of Detail (LOD) Bias beyond what the game’s own menu allows, while increasing other settings such as Digital Vibrance, making certain abilities essentially see-through while character models are easy to pick out.
The exploit utilizes Neon’s ‘Fast Lane’ ability, which fires a missile that stops when it reaches terrain. When the missile’s path ends, two parallel walls of static electricity are created on the missile’s path, creating a ‘lane’ for Neon to run through.
The walls act as a vision blocker, both to enemies and also Neon, but with the exploit, the walls do not render, essentially giving the Neon player a wallhack.
Following the spread of the exploit on social media, Riot disabled the hero, stating that it was a “graphics exploit” that “affects competitive integrity.”
When will Neon return to Valorant?
When announcing the disabling of the Agent, Riot stated that she will be removed until Patch 12.09. For context, the 12.08 patch was released on April 28, with new patches generally coming every two weeks.
That means that Neon should return to Valorant on May 12, if all goes to plan. But it will not only be the exploit that the devs are trying to fix.
Neon was described as “over-tuned” by Riot’s statement, a sentiment echoed by many players who have found her zippy movement to be oppressive in competitive play.
Therefore, the Duelist will hopefully return without any exploits and in a more balanced state come May 12, and beyond.
What Neon changes do you want to see? Let us know on our Discord!
For more Valorant news, see how Valorant Mobile surpassed 10 million users.
Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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