Valorant's next cosmetic bundle looks eerily familiar: the Black Market pack, which launches April 12, coincides with Valve's recent announcement of Counter-Strike 2, a casual Counter-Strike 2. The five skins included in the pack transform the default Valorant guns into their Counter-Strike counterparts. For example,

For those who are still unsure if this similarity is a coincidence, I should add that the Black Market bundle references Counter-Strike's terrorist/counter-terrorist format by changing the appearance of each skin during attack and defense. If this reference is correct, we would see a wood-grained Vandal only when attacking.

Reactions to this bundle are appropriately mixed. Some players enjoy the cheeky Counter-Strike makeover, while others take it as a sign that Riot is scared of the buzz around Counter-Strike 2 (open in new tab). Personally, I think these skins, while simple, are a big improvement over Valorant's horribly boring all-black default skins. Official pricing has not yet been announced, but based on Valorant's bundle pricing trends, all five skins will cost around $60 to $80 ($16 to $23 apiece).

"I guess it's fine, but I can't justify paying for generic skins for weapons I've used in every FPS shooter for the past 20 years," wrote Redditor xStickyBudz (opens in new tab).

Another common reaction is disappointment that the ability to swap between attack and defense skins will be exclusive to this bundle; Valorant players have been asking for years for a similar feature that would work with any skin, but according to Riot, the potential strain on hardware requirements has not been realized.

"More skins, more memory = more load times," Associate Art Director Sean Marino wrote in a Reddit response (opens in new tab).

"We want players to get into the game quickly, and we don't want a lot of things going on in the background to interfere with that.

Fair enough, but if I were a Valorant player I would not be happy. Are players willing to accept slightly longer load times in order to feel more free to show off the skins they paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for?

Riot's continued commitment to keep Valorant at a low spec to run on anything comes at a cost.