Valorant's Killjoy briefly enjoyed an NFT, but Riot says it was a 'whoopsie'

Killjoy is one of Valorant's most beloved playable characters, and it's easy to see why: she is a genius, she looks cool, is from Berlin, and in a canny bit of cross-promotion, is a proven fan of League of Legends. She loves robots and has an overall cheerful personality. So far, so unimpeachable.

That all came crashing down earlier today, when the German Valorant account tweeted an image of Killjoy enjoying some art. That's bad, but it gets worse: the art was a work by Martin Houra, who distributes his work as NFTs.

Here's the now deleted tweet, screengrabbed by a Twitter user:

Valorant's Killjoy enjoying an NFT — (Image credit: Riot)

While it doesn't look like Killjoy could simply right click and save that image—it's framed and hung on a wall—the Houra artwork itself has an indelible connection to the controversial NFT world. That's a problem, because Killjoy is not meant to be controversial: she's meant to be loveable. It wasn't long before the same German Valorant account clarified its intent.

"Whoopsie! We're always trying to give you new experiences and interesting facts on our local channels, including a look into Killjoy and her hometown of Berlin," the account tweeted. "Since Killjoy loves programming, we wanted to introduce you to computer generated art from around the world. However, we were not aware that the selected work was an NFT. In no way did we intend to include NFTs as part of Killjoy's work and hobbies."

The art depicted is from Houra's Solar series, which is "a collection of 100 videos on a custom made smart contract, living on the Ethereum blockchain, forever."

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.