Valorant developers open up about adding voice-over feature in new Protocol 781-A skin bundle

The new Valorant Skin bundle, Protocol 781-A releases alongside Episode 4 Act 1, on 11 January 2022, with a unique voice line feature and dystopian textures.

Valorant developers have created unique skin designs since its release. This time, they are bringing a dark sci-fi and robotic themed weapon skin bundle, Protocol 781-A. However, the most unique part of the skin is the voice-over feature available after the skin's Level 5 upgrade.

The bundle contains skins for the following five weapons:

• Personal Administrative Melee Unit (melee)
• Protocol 781-A Phantom
• Protocol 781-A Spectre
• Protocol 781-A Bulldog
• Protocol 781-A Sheriff

Protocol 781-A is set in Ultra Edition (UE) price tier, with a total cost of 9,900 VP. Players can buy the skin line as soon as it arrives in stores after the Patch 4.0 update.

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Valorant devs share their experience in designing Protocol 781-A skin bundle

Sean Marino, Valorant’s Associate Art Director at Riot Games, opened up about the ideation and his experience of designing Protocol 781-A. He focused on the voice-over feature added to the new skin bundle that sets it apart from others. Sean expressed:

“We went back and forth on adding voice-over (VO) to this skin line because we weren’t sure if it was possible. Once we decided to delay the skin, it was much more feasible.

Revealing the intense process behind its design, Sean stated:

After we developed the backstory for Protocol 781-A with our narrative writer, we determined that the VO should feel controlling, robotic (but emotionless, not a friendly robot), strict, demanding, cold, and as if there’s always an implicit threat in what it says to you.”

Sean further mentioned how the whole process evolved and the team experimented with voice variants to bring a more realistic touch to the skin line. He elaborated by saying,

“Our headcanon for the two voice options was that, in the Protocol 781-A world, people are assigned a voice variant based on which voice profile the person’s psychological evaluation determines will evoke the most compliant response.

Focusing on creating an immersive experience, Sean stated:

The last thing for us to solve with the VO was how players could tell if an agent or the skin was talking to them. We tried a few options in the in-game HUD and opted to have the skin line talk to you in the same interface that players’ voice chat boxes normally pop! It’s more immersive and it gave the VO that final sense of realism we wanted.”

It will be interesting to know the community’s take to the new Protocol 781-A skin bundle, as there have been no voice line-based skins before, with a dark sci-fi touch.