Valorant
Valorant
Riot is removing the popular Widejoy meme and fans aren’t happy
Fariha Bhatti
Valorant players are always eager to get in-game bugs removed, but they want this particular glitch to stay. Here’s what Widejoy means to Valorant and its players. Valorant has a lot of iconic memes including ones that have been recognized by Riot Games as well. From “rebibe me Jett” to a lobster spray, the developer has encouraged the community to meme around the game. But it seems that Valorant’s most …
Valorant
Here’s every Phantom skin in Valorant and how much they cost
Fariha Bhatti
Riot Games has rolled out exquisite skins for each weapon in Valorant that make the experience a whole lot better. The Phantom has over 25 skins, and we’ve compiled them into one place. Valorant’s Phantom is often preferred over its counterpart Vandal for smooth spray potential. The gun deals heavy damage in close-range duels, and its one-taps are also not too bad. The Phantom is deadly, but why not have …
Valorant
Valorant matches taking too long to find, Riot fixes queue time
Fariha Bhatti
Valorant queue time has been unbelievably long for many players. Riot Games has finally found a way to cut the wait time by half after players’ demand. Players have long been complaining about the sudden hike in Valorant smurfs, prompting Riot to take intense action. The developer found a middle ground, which came with a downside of prolonged wait time in Valorant rank queues. However, Riot Games has now rectified …
Valorant
How to get 2021 VCT spray and gun buddy from Twitch drops
Fariha Bhatti
Valorant’s year-long esports circuit, the Valorant Champions Tour, is finally wrapping up and Riot Games has rolled out exclusive merch and goodies for dedicated fans. This includes a free VCT Twitch drop spray, gun buddy, and player card. Riot Games has been throwing free items at players lately between the 2021 League of Legends World Championship and the RiotX Arcane event to celebrate the premiere of the animated series. That’s not …
Valorant
Why is Valorant updating so slow? How to fix the issue
Fariha Bhatti
Players are eager to grab the new patch each time Riot Games roll out new content, but slow download speed can sometimes dampen the fun. Minor updates are easier to tackle, even for low-end PCs and slow internet. However, massive updates like the previous 3.0 Valorant patch can take up a large chunk of PC performance and internet speed. It becomes even harder to tackle when patches feature skin packs …
Valorant
How to hide or show account level in Valorant
Fariha Bhatti
The new Valorant update has rolled in with a much needed “hide level” feature that players can toggle on and off upon will. Riot games recently introduced an account level feature to Valorant that showcased how much time players have invested in the game. While it was well-received by the veterans, those with low levels had a different experience. Now the developer has responded to the feedback in patch 3.08. Players …
News
The complete guide to effectively using the Operator in Valorant
Fariha Bhatti
The Operator has always remained under professional players’ scope for not being deadly enough but it’s still one of the best weapons in Valorant. Snipers in Valorant often get criticized for being a bit slow but these weapons are still prefered due to the high damage rate. Many players prefer the Operator for its one-shot kill potential that can de lethal when equipped with the correct agent. The Operator has …
News
All the correct call-outs for newest Valorant map Breeze
Fariha Bhatti
Breeze has finally entered the competitive map pool for Valorant, so you may want to get your callouts right. This Valorant map is now available to play in ranked games and will be part of the competitive map pool in professional tournaments. The map is relatively new, so it’s okay if you haven’t learned every corner by heart. We have a perfect Breeze callout guide that will help you perform better …
Valorant players dismiss instructions to avoid teabagging during VCT
Fariha Bhatti
News
During a Valorant Champions Tour match, European Valorant players were explicitly advised not to teabag or shoot the enemy’s corpse. The instructions were brushed aside as clips of teabagging surfaced after the G2 esports versus Team Dfuse game. In professional matches, there are a strict set of rules that must be followed during the game. For example, cheating, hacking is prohibited to ensure fair play. But some other rules exist …
Valorant’s original character art shows the game’s origins
M Alzamora
News
Players are very familiar with Valorant’s unqiue characters by now, but they might hardly recognize them from how differnet they used to look. Game development is a trial and error process, and Riot Games’ Valorant wasn’t any different. While it borrowed heavily from the shooters that came before it, the game shines largely through its characters. These characters are the game’s main stars. And they went through many different changes …
Explaining Valorant weapon spray patterns and if they’re random
M Alzamora
News
The spray patterns on Valorant’s weapons might seem random, but its weapons are actually easier to control than in many other popular first-person shooters. Any player that has spent time in competitive tactical shooters has dealt with mastering recoil control. And even though Valorant’s spray patterns are nearly identical to those in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, both games have built-in randomness to where exactly a player’s bullets end up. When firing …
How to find out if you’ve played with popular Valorant streamers
Olivia Richman
News
A new website is answering a burning question a lot of Valorant players have. Did they ever play against a famous streamer? The website, called VOD Search, lets players find out if they have ever been on someone’s live stream. Valorant players can find out if they’ve directly interacted with streamers while they were broadcasting matches by searching their in-game name. One of the site’s developers also noted that the …
Riot Games has long looked to expand its footprint beyond the success of popular MOBA League of Legends, and one of its biggest successes to date in this regard is the tactical shooter, Valorant. Blending traditional first-person shooter elements with unique and flashy hero abilities, Valorant seeks to combine the best attributes of tactical shooters and hero shooters into one cohesive experience.
Based on player feedback, the game has largely succeeded in accomplishing those aims. It’s not an easy balance, and it’s one that is arguably still tenuous, but Riot Games seems to be doing as good a job of it as most fans have hoped for.
What type of game is Valorant?
Valorant is a first-person shooter that represents a unique blend of the tactical shooter and hero shooter subgenres. There are some games that represent similar gameplay elements, but not many that offer the exact experience that Valorant puts forward to players.
The tactical shooter genre is often considered to have been defined by the release of the original Counter-Strike, a multiplayer mod for famed single-player PC title Half-Life that later became a standalone game of its own. While most multiplayer FPS games to that point emphasized prolonged battles between opposing players zipping around the game at high speeds, Counter-Strike slowed things down significantly and made players much more susceptible to each other’s firepower, requiring players to take a more tactical approach to play.
That slower and more tactical approach, combined with the lightning-quick nature of action when it does occur, proved reliably popular. That popularity can still be seen today with the ongoing success enjoyed by the Counter-Strike franchise, and it’s this gameplay type that represents the core of Valorant. It’s no accident that former Counter-Strike developers were drafted by Riot Games to help create Valorant during the game’s formative stages.
What differentiates Valorant from CS and other tactical shooters it that each of the game’s characters, called agents, wield a number of unique abilities. Some are typical for tactical shooters, like flashbangs and smokes, while others are wildly different, such as an ability that transports two players to an isolated dueling arena for its duration.
These agent abilities are more reminiscent of hero shooters, a subgenre that arguably got its start with the Team Fortress games but has best been popularized by Blizzard title Overwatch. The abilities, combind with the tactical considerations that are at the core of Valorant, separate it from most any other FPS experience available for play.
How does Valorant esports work?
Like many other popular competitive shooters, Valorant does have a thriving esports scene. That scene is differentiated by the way it’s run and controlled by developer and publisher Riot Games. Riot uses a model based on the success of its League of Legends esports scene, which sees the globe’s competitive players and team’s separated by region. These regions play out their own competitions in their sections of the world before coming together at regular intervals for international tournaments featuring the best teams from each individual region.
While League of Legends once boasted a variety of regions and regional types, Riot sought to simplify that model when setting up esports for Valorant. The game has only a handful of major regions, and these regions are held as largely equitable, each sending their best teams to international events leading up to the year-end VALORANT Champions event.
