Elderflame, VALORANT's first Ultra Edition skin collection, is blazing a trail for the game's cosmetics with its incredible dragon designs, but one weapon appears to stand out a lot more than the rest.
There's no doubt that the dragon-themed bundle looks great. After all, who doesn't want to wield a dragon-shaped gun in combat? Now available in VALORANT's in-game store, the collection provides players with an Elderflame Frenzy, Vandal, Operator, Knife, and Judge, not to mention an insanely awesome kill animation that involves a dragon made of fire swooping down on your opponents. Each weapon also has its own unique reload animation and sound and can be upgraded with Radianite points. Though the full collection costs a pretty penny, coming it at roughly $95 USD, it makes sense that the free-to-play game is offering something to players who are willing to shell out a bit extra.
Unfortunately, the Elderflame Judge got our attention for an entirely different reason: its seemingly unintentional lewd design.
Though some fans might not notice it right away, it's apparent that the skin doesn't only look like a dragon; it also looks a bit like a reproductive appendage. Perched on a fiery bulbous stone, the dragon on the Elderflame Judge has an exceedingly long, extended neck and appears to only have two back feet, making it look a bit like a Wyvern.
Now, if its general silhouette doesn't seem like enough to go on, you might want to inspect the Judge skin more thoroughly. For, behind the dragon's legs, the gun branches out into the stock, which seems to be the dragon's tail, and a handle below -- and this is where the real issue lies.
If you're anything like us and decided to inspect the Elderflame collection by scrolling through each of the new skins, rotating them in turn to check out their unique designs, it might become immediately obvious that the Judge's handle has something else on it. Now, we're not going to go into more details about what that might be, but looking at the photo above, it should be pretty evident.
Of course, it's hard to know what Riot was thinking when it unleashed this particular design upon the unsuspecting VALORANT community. Was it intentional? Or did this get through without anyone noticing? Honestly, we're impressed either way. In an interview with Polygon, VALORANT art lead Sean Marino described the challenges the team faced when creating the Elderflame collection.
“Silhouettes are really important,” Marino told Polygon. “This one [collection] definitely pushes the boundaries of it. But we tried creative things like with the Frenzy and we’re like, ‘How can we fit a dragon into this situation?’ And we found a cool opportunity to take its tail and wrap it around the bottom of the magazine to put it into the correct shape."
It's obvious that a lot of work went into creating each new design, and we're not trying to take away from that. It's just hard to look at the Elderflame Judge the same way after seeing so much (perhaps too much) of it. If anything, we're looking forward to seeing players playing with it on battlefield.