On the 16th of October, which was the 10 year anniversary for League of Legends, Riot games announced that they have been working on multiple games behind the scenes, them being a League of Legends fighting game, codenamed Project L. Almost no info was given about this fighting game, but as far as we know, its in the making. A card game has also been announced, Legends of Runeterra. The game will directly compete with Blizzard’s Hearthstone, and is currently available to play via Riot’s beta version, as the game isn’t fully complete. There still is no information regarding a final release date for Legends of Runeterra. However, the biggest news of all of this was that Riot Games are working on a tactical FPS game. This will be Riot’s first competitive FPS and its name is Valorant, previously known as Project A.
Riot shooter main goal with Valorant is to compete directly with the biggest FPS esports titles out there. Riot are interested in replicating their success in League of Legends with multiple esport genres. Head of Riot Games Leanne Loombe said the following in an interview regarding their upcoming releases: “Riot’s focus is to make genre-defining games for players that will last decades, which takes time, and might not manifest itself in a large number of games,”
What is it and what makes it so special?
Valorant is a 5 on 5 FPS based Tactical Shooter which involves gunplay and abilities. In a trailer they released in October, they talked about what the main goal for valorant riot is going to be and what the core gameplay will feel like.
After watching the video, you’ll come to notice that most of the stuff that was mentioned, like low ping, better tick rate, cheaters are all things that CS:GO currently suffers from. The community has been asking for 128 tick servers for a very long time, and Valve still hasn’t given out a reason as to why they do not want to upgrade their matchmaking servers. In addition to this, most competitive CS:GO players nowadays play on third party applications such as FACEIT or ESEA to get better servers, which is a shame really.
Gameplay and what it’s like
Regarding core gameplay, from the footage released so far, we see that Valorant sits somewhere between Overwatch and Counter-Strike in terms of gameplay. It has the abilities of characters from Overwatch whilst also having the same tactical play-style that Counter-Strike has. Valorant will work with a round-based system, similar to CS:GO, but instead of having 30 rounds, Valorant will feature 24 rounds. Something interesting about Valorant overall is that the team side names will be Attackers vs Defenders which will definitely be more appealing to a wider competitive audience and more open to sponsorships. Probably the most important information shown in the trailer is the buy menu, and economy based system. This is a game mechanic that has been instrumental to the huge success that Counter-Strike has had for the past 20 years,
Valoran characters & abilities
Currently, there are only 8 characters that we know of and they are the following:
Viper
A female agent with a deadly attitude: Viper deploys an array of poisonous chemical devices to control the battlefield and cripple the enemy’s vision. If the toxins don’t kill her prey, her mind games surely will.
- Snakebite – Fire a projectile that explodes into a pool of damaging acid.
- Poison Cloud – Throw a gas emitter that you can reactivate to create a poisonous smoke cloud at the cost of fuel. The emitter can be picked up and thrown again after a short cooldown.
- Signature Ability: Toxic Screen – Deploy a long line of gas emitters that you can reactivate to create a tall wall of toxic gas at the cost of fuel.
- Ultimate: Viper’s Pit – Emit a massive toxic cloud in a large area that lasts as long as Viper stays inside the cloud. Enemies inside the cloud are highlighted to Viper.
Sova
A male agent with a heroic look: Sova tracks, finds and eliminates enemies with ruthless efficiency and precision. His custom bow and incredible scouting abilities ensure that even if you run, you cannot hide.
- Shock Bolt – Fire an explosive bolt that emits a damaging pulse of static energy upon impact.
- Owl Drone – Deploy a pilotable drone that can fire a dart that will Reveal enemies who are hit.
- Signature Ability: Recon Bolt – Fire a bolt that deploys a sonar emitter. The sonar pings tag nearby enemies, causing them to be revealed. Can be destroyed.
- Ultimate: Hunter’s Fury – Fire up to three deadly energy blasts that spear across the entire map. Each hit enemy takes heavy damage and is marked.
Phoenix
An agent with fire abilities: Phoenix’s star power shines through in his fighting style, igniting the battlefield with flash and flare. Whether he’s got backup or not, he’s rushing in to fight on his own terms.
- Hot Hands – Throw a fireball that explodes after a delay or upon impact with the ground. The fire zone damages enemies, and heals you.
- Blaze – Cast out a flame wall that blocks vision and damages anyone passing through it. You can bend the wall when casting by turning while holding the left click.
- Signature Ability: Curveball– Cast a curving flare that bursts into brilliant light after a brief delay, temporarily blinding all looking at it. Left-click curves it left, right-click curves it right.
- Ultimate Ability: Run it Back – Mark your current location. If you die during this ability’s duration, or when this ability’s duration expires, you’ll be reborn at the marked location with full health.
Jett
The quick and light runner, similar to Tracer from Overwatch: Jett’s agile and evasive fighting style lets her take risks no one else can. She runs circles around every skirmish, cutting enemies up before they even know what hit them.
- Cloudburst – Throw out a cloud of fog that obscures vision on impact. Hold down the ability button to bend the cloud’s in-flight trajectory.
- Updraft – After a brief wind up, propel yourself upwards.
- Signature Ability: Tailwind – Immediately dash a short distance in the direction you’re moving.
- Ultimate: Blade Storm – Arm yourself with several deadly throwing knives that deal moderate damage and kill on headshots. Scoring a kill restores all daggers. Left-click throws a single dagger. Right-click throws all remaining daggers in a short-ranged burst.
Cypher
A bionic cowboy: Cypher is a one-man surveillance network who keeps tabs on the enemy’s every move. No secret is safe. No maneuver goes unseen. Cypher is always watching.
- Free Ability: Trapwire – Place a stealthed tripwire between two walls. Triggering enemies are restrained and revealed for a short time. If the trap is not destroyed, it activates to daze the trapped victim. Can be picked up.
- Cyber Cage – Toss out a remote activation trap. Reactivate to create a cage that slows enemies who pass through it. Look at a trap and press USE to detonate it, or hold ACTIVATE to detonate all.
- Signature Ability: Spycam – Place a remote camera. After placing, reactivate to view the video feed. Left-click while in-camera to fire a tracking dart. Recharges when picked up or killed.
- Ultimate: Neural Theft– Extract information from the corpse of an enemy, revealing the location of their living allies.
Sage
The healer, who’s similar to Mercy from Overwatch: Sage creates safety for herself and her team wherever she goes. Able to revive fallen friends and stave off forceful assaults, she provides a calm center to a hellish battlefield.
- Slow Orb – Cast out a radianite orb that breaks into a slowing field upon impact with the ground. All caught in the field are slowed, grounded, and make noise when moving.
- Barrier Orb – Conjure a large, solid wall. Right-click to rotate the wall before casting.
- Signature Ability: Healing Orb – Heal an ally or yourself to full health over a few seconds.
- Ultimate: Resurrection– Target a friendly corpse. After a short delay, revive them with full health.
Brimstone
The brawn: Brimstone’s orbital arsenal ensures his squad always has the advantage. His ability to deliver utility precisely and safely make him the unmatched boots-on-the-ground commander.
- Incendiary – Launch an incendiary grenade that deploys a damaging field of fire.
- Stim Beacon – Target a nearby location to call in a Stim Beacon, giving all players near it Rapidfire.
- Signature Ability: Sky Smoke – Use your map to call in orbital deployment smokescreens that obscure vision. Click to set the locations, and confirm to launch.
- Ultimate: Orbital Strike – Use your map to target a location, launching a devastating orbital strike that pulses for high damage over several seconds.
Omen
The hunter: Omen hunts in the shadows. He renders enemies blind, teleports across the field, then lets paranoia take hold as foes scramble to uncover where it might strike next.
- Paranoia – Send out an Ethereal shadow in a straight line, earsighting anyone it touches.
- Shadow Walk – After a delay, dematerialize and teleport a short distance.
- Signature Ability: Dark Cover – Cast out a stealthed ethereal orb that bursts into an obscuring sphere of shadow at its final location. It can be charged to increase distance.
- Ultimate: From the Shadows – Select anywhere on the map to teleport and reform. When arriving, appear as a Shade, that will go back to your original location if killed. Once the teleport is complete, become Incorporeal for a short time.
They all have different abilities, and even though there are all these contrasting characters, Riot has implied that the most important feature is gunplay and that abilities are simply tactical options.
Criticism
Most of the Criticism valorant gameplay has received so far has been about some of the Character’s abilities, specifically “Sage” with her healing and reviving abilities. In Overwatch it makes a lot of sense to have a reviving character such as Mercy, as the game itself is a very intense objective-based shooter, where eliminating your opponent, is not the main objective. But in a Tactical FPS such as CS:GO reviving would definitely not make sense. Just imagine being in a 1 v 1 clutch, and you decide to revive your teammate and continue the round 2 v 1. Exactly, it doesn’t make sense. However, despite the criticism that Riot has received about this, they are still going ahead as they believe that this is how a tactical shooter should be played out.
Another huge thing that struck controversy was the fact that Valorant will have a standardized 3 bomb-site map layout for each map it has. This can be seen in footage that they have released named as “The Round” on their main youtube channel. Being a tactical FPS shooter that will consist of 5 players on each side, the Defense will definitely find it challenging to have control of, and defend all bombsites. Most have been speculating that since the bomb-sites are small, it makes sense to have more bomb-sites, although we will have to wait for its official release to fully understand how this will work.
When will Valorant be released?
On March 2nd, the Dev team behind Valorant announced in the “project a” trailer that the game is set to release in the Summer of 2020. Valorant release will indubitably shake up the FPS community, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If the game seems promising to be a top tier FPS esports, this will mean that games like CS:GO and Overwatch might need to adapt and release more content and updates due to its release, to attract more players. In the end, we’ll have to see how the game feels like, after its release and watching the valorant trailer, as it is still too early to assume what the game will play out like.
Will there be a Beta available?
Nothing has been announced about a valorant beta as of yet, but since this is a game from Riot, it is only natural that in due time we will receive a valorant release date beta with an announcement very soon.
More info can be found on the official Valorant site here: https://playvalorant.com/en-us/
