shroud says Valorant is easier than CSGO, and here's why

Olivia Richman Published 07/04/2020

More and more streamers are weighing in on Valorant days before the closed beta becomes available to the gaming public.

Former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro Mike “Shroud” Grzesiek is the latest content creator to voice his opinion on Riot’s new FPS title. He said that the game is easier to play than CSGO, and it’s mostly due to the simplified map.

“The time to kill is one-to-one with CS. It just seems easier because the game is like 1.6, where it’s just bland, super simple. The walls have nothing on it. The characters pop,” shroud explained.

This simplicity makes it a lot easier to target opponents. That’s when many skilled CSGO players’ accuracy and mechanics will serve them so well and the headshots will start rolling in.

This is a completely different take than that which former Overwatch League pro “xQc” Lengyel had after his initial experience playing Valorant. xQc felt that the objectives of the game became aggravating because of the agents’ abilities. This made the streamer feel as though Valorant had too much going on compared to Counter-Strike.

“It’s fucking annoying dude,” xQc said. “In CS, you rarely have a wall that has 3,000 HP, two lines of Viper shit, glowing fire, and flying people. There’s none of that in CS.”

Despite all of the differences, other pros have noticed a lot of striking similarities between Valorant and CSGO. 100 Thieves was quick to point out the eerily similar recoil mechanics in both titles. Riot hasn’t spoken out about the comparision, but it’s possible that Valorant was purposely made similar to the older title to make the transition easier for Counter-Strike players.

shroud thrives in Valorant during closed beta

It’s interesting to see how shroud’s opinions on Valorant have changed over the course of a month. At the start of March, the CSGO player gave his fans some initial thoughts on the yet-to-be-released game.

“I don’t know if this game can surpass CS, but I think it’ll be successful,” he speculated.

shroud also kept getting confused over the various abilities he was seeing in the Valorant gameplay Riot released. He complained that the game might be difficult to watch compared to CSGO because of the addition of abilities that people might not initially understand.

“There’s still questions,” shroud said. “What’s going on? This shit’s weird.”

Despite his confusion over the use of abilities and what they did, shroud did commend Riot on Valorant’s map designs.

A month later, shroud found himself finally playing the game, including using the exact same abilities he was confused about just weeks prior. Now, shroud was enjoying them immensely. Listening to his comms with his teammates on Mixer, it seemed like Shroud also had a good handle on communicating when and how to use those abilities.

It looks like xQc might be wrong when he said “washed up CSGO pros” wouldn’t thrive on Valorant. In fact, it seems like shroud might have the upper-hand on xQc if the two ever came face-to-face in the closed beta.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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