Riot Introduces HRTF Audio in VALORANT Patch 2.06 for Better Positional Awareness

Nafiu Aziz
By Nafiu Aziz
2 Min Read
Image Credit: Riot Games

Riot Games is bringing HRTF audio to some part of the overall audio experience in VALORANT with patch 2.06 to address the issue some players face with positional audio in this game.

The audio has been a talking point in the community following VALORANT’s official launch back in 2020. Some players were really not happy with the overall audio experience curated by Riot and claimed it had an unacceptable performance on 7.1 virtual surround headsets.

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Furthermore, some fans even claimed they had difficulties with figuring out footstep sounds from all the other noises. This is a critical pain point in a tactical shooter where sounds of footsteps play a major role in determining your opponents’ position on the map.

Since information is key in a tactical shooter like VALORANT, Riot is launching HRTF audio to the game for a better positional audio experience for players.

HRTF Audio Release Patch 2.06

~ HRTF allows players wearing headphones to play audio in a simulated surround sound audio space.

~ Currently, only footsteps, reloads, and Deathmatch respawns are rendered using HRTF

It seems like Riot made a significant update to the audio experience in VALORANT by bringing in HRTF audio to some important aspects of the game like a footstep, weapon reloads, and respawn sounds made in the Deathmatch game mode.

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This tech could finally alleviate the problems some players were having with determining the exact location of footsteps.

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Nafiu Aziz is an avid gamer and a writer at GameRiv, covering Apex Legends, CS:GO, VALORANT, and plenty of other popular FPS titles in between. He scours the internet daily to get the latest scoop in esports.