Cypher Removed from VALORANT After Camera Bug Reappears
Riot Games removed Cypher from all VALORANT game modes following the resurgence of a long-standing Spycam bug. The glitch, which had previously plagued the tactical hero shooter, enables players to weaponize Cypher’s Spycam surveillance device in unintended ways by deploying the camera, dropping a weapon into it, and remotely firing that weapon.
The bug prompted immediate complaints from players on social media, particularly those who main Cypher and were temporarily locked out of using their primary character. Riot Games acknowledged the issue on social media, confirming that the development team was actively working on a fix.
This marks another resurgence of a recurring problem in VALORANT’s live-service ecosystem. The temporary removal of Cypher from gameplay highlights Riot’s approach to maintaining competitive integrity—prioritizing the removal of exploitable heroes over allowing matches to proceed with unbalanced mechanics.
The incident underscores the ongoing challenges of live-service game maintenance, where bugs can slip through patches and reappear unpredictably. For Cypher players, the temporary removal means finding alternative agent selections until Riot deploys a permanent fix to the Spycam functionality.