Following Valorant’s recent Deathmatch update, players are bringing up the issue of Valorant’s sound localization. Sound localization is the “listener’s ability to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in direction and distance.”

Deathmatch made me realize how bad the sound is in Valorant from VALORANT

The main complaint is that it is hard to determine exactly where an enemy is simply based on audio cues. The OP’s example on Reddit is “on Bind I heard the metallic floor and I was hearing the footsteps like he was up in heaven but he was to my left on connector.” This sentiment is echoed by many others in the replies to the post with various reasons given as to why this happens.

Sound in Valorant vs CSGO

One of the main reasons given is that the game doesn’t have sound depth or any sort of 3D audio options. The lack of depth means that players will often seem like they’re at the same distance to the player regardless of where they actually are on the map. The only options in Valorant’s menu are Mono and Stereo.

CS:GO has both 5.1 surround and HRTF (head-related transfer function), which enhances 360-degree sound positioning when wearing headphones. Even before this, Valve released an update where 3rd person footsteps were louder than weapon sounds and introduced new surface footstep sounds.

Another reason given is the hardware that the player uses. Some players are reporting that the directional sound problem was fixed with 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound headphones.

Comment from discussion snippsville’s comment from discussion "Deathmatch made me realize how bad the sound is in Valorant".

However, a developer should not expect players to buy different gear in order to enjoy their game to the fullest. Riot Games needs to implement some sort of HRTF feature in Valorant to make up for this lack of surround sound headphones.

What do you think? Have you had issues like this in the game? For exclusive interviews, the freshest news, and extensive guides, remember to follow us at Run It Back.