Valorant
News
Valorant bug prevents players from picking certain agents
Olivia Richman
Valorant Patch 1.09 introduced some features that are not working as intended. Riot Games added a new feature to their FPS that allows players to pin their chat window across menus. Players immediately took to Reddit to point out that this change made it so players with certain resolutions can’t choose Breach, the agent furthest to the left, since he’s blocked by the chat window. Players with 5:4 or 4:3 …
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Team Heretics enters Valorant esports by signing loWel, pAura
Fariha Bhatti
Spanish esports organization Team Heretics has announced the signings of Christian “loWel” Garcia Antoran and Melih “pAura” Karaduran. The duo are the first members of its new Valorant lineup. This will not be either players’ first foray into Valorant, as the duo played together under the Team Inferno banner in August. Both players played just two games with Inferno, losing to Ninjas in Pyjamas and Giants Gaming at LVL Clash …
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100 Thieves has just revealed its full Valorant roster
M Alzamora
100 Thieves finalized its official Valorant on October 2 with the signing of former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitor Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk and 17-year-old Valorant pro Quan “dicey” Tran. The duo joins three of CSGO’s most experienced players, including former Team Liquid stars Spencer “Hiko” Martin and Nick “nitr0” Cannella and former Chaos Esports Club’s Joshua “steel” Nissan. 100 Thieves now has a complete Valorant roster ready for North American competition. …
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Valorant teases big update, but is it a new map or a new agent?
Olivia Richman
Valorant’s Episode 1 Act 3 is coming October 5. With the next act fast approaching, Valorant has been teasing the update on Twitter. On September 24, Valorant asked players, “Who is on the bench?” Who’s on the bench? pic.twitter.com/EmVy08XYqD — VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) September 24, 2020 Valorant fans took to Reddit to discuss the possible meaning behind the cryptic tweet. Some players noted that the question references a bench on the …
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Stats show that every Valorant map favors the defense
M Alzamora
A breakdown of Valorant’s kill-to-death ratios and side win rates show that the game’s defensive players kill more often and win more rounds than attackers, often by large margins. Players have thought that Valorant’s attacking side is the game’s more difficult side to play, and now map statistics show that there is a lot of truth behind that feeling. Statistics sites all show that on each of Valorant’s four maps, …
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Valorant’s new G.U.N. skin line inspired by science fiction
Olivia Richman
Valorant is already getting another skin line. It was just September 15 when Valorant announced its EGO skin line, which featured darker themes for the strongest weapons in each class. This included a gold-tipped knife that players couldn’t keep their eyes off of. High risk // high heat // 9.17 pic.twitter.com/YBEbFVEQlS — VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) September 15, 2020 But Valorant is already bringing a new skin line to its loyal fans. …
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Valorant exploring left-hand view models, hit registration
M Alzamora
Riot’s “Ask Valorant #8” came with even more insight into the developer’s plans for the future of the first-person shooter. Riot sat down and took another round of community questions this week, giving some answers regarding the possibility of left-handed viewmodels, improved gameplay experiences, and queue concerns after the patch 1.08 map rotation fix. The actual answers included more admissions of considerations than actual answers, but the blog’s insight left …
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Valorant to host First Strike event to crown first world champion
gabhernandez
Riot Games has announced First Strike, a series of regional tournaments that will determine a regional champion, then pit those teams against each other to crown a world champion. First Strike is the first tournament that is organized and funded solely by Riot games. Whalen Rozelle, Senior Director of Global Esports at Riot Games explained the tournament layout in a video posted to Twitter. “This extended event will provide the …
Valorant patch 1.08 leak hints at a mobile release
Fariha Bhatti
News
Valorant’s 1.08 update fixes various in-game bugs. However, a leak in the latest patch hints towards a potential iOS and Android release for the popular tactical shooter. Recently, a video surfaced on the internet in which data miners found a curious leak while browsing through code following release of patch 1.08. A functional mobile UI could be seen on the screen, hinting at the release of Valorant’s Android version. YouTuber …
Valorant data miners find two new planned game modes
M Alzamora
News
Data miners who had previously unearthed details about Riot Games’ Valorant have now uncovered potential new modes for the popular shooter. Three slots were found in Valorant’s patch 1.08, and one of them might bring Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s community-retake mode to Valorant. Referred to as “SiteRush” in the tweet, Valorant data miners Valor Leaks tweeted that it had also found two modes named only “Alt 5” and “Alt 6” inside …
Drama grips NiP Valorant team with Sayf signing, Hyp benching
Olivia Richman
News
Ninjas in Pyjamas has made another major Valorant roster change. NiP recently signed former Counter-Strike pro Saif “Sayf” Jibreel and benched Damien “Hyp” Souville and Enzo “Fearoth” Mestari. This change most likely came as a response to hiring a new head coach, Emil “eMIL” Sandgren. We say welcome to @DSajoof – an update on our Valorant rosterRead more at https://t.co/5pYmJDQl5G#GONINJAS #VALORANT pic.twitter.com/oW5kJyCfmD — Ninjas in Pyjamas at Home???????????? (@NiPGaming) September …
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 …
Who is Sabine in Valorant? A new agent, or something else?
Olivia Richman
News
For a while now, Valorant players have kept hearing the name “Sabine” while playing the game. But who is she? Is it a code name? A new agent? Who is Sabine, and why do we keep hearing her name? As far as the evidence goes, Sabine is not a new agent. For a while, many players speculated that Sabine was the leaked name of a new agent, sneakily mentioned by …
Raze gets big nerf in Valorant 1.08 while Guardian is upgraded
Olivia Richman
News
Pub stomper Raze has proven to be pretty strong in competitive mode as well. In patch 1.08, Valorant developers are taking away some of her firepower. The big focus of Raze’s nerf is on her Blast Pack. Its initial damage was reduced to 15 with a 0.2 meter inner radius. Once the satchel lands, it arms after 0.5 seconds with an increased max damage up to 50. The satchel no …
Riot hires anti-cheat ‘vigilante’ to help clean up Valorant
Olivia Richman
News
Valorant developers have always been serious about catching hackers and cheaters but Riot is making a surprising move in those efforts. Mohamed “GamerDoc” Al-Sharif announced that he was hired as part of the developer’s anti-cheat team. GamerDoc is well known for his cheat hunting in the gaming community. The 24-year-old was catching cheaters in Overwatch and Valorant before being hired by Riot, maintaining Discord channels dedicated to getting cheaters removed …
Valorant’s new skin bundle EGO set, new knife variants to come
M Alzamora
News
A tweet from the official Valorant Twitter account for its new skin line EGO is a perfect time to step up the knife game. Titled “Feed Your Ego,” the tweet featured a wireframe outline of one of the game’s new knives from the upcoming EGO by OneTap skin collection, set to drop on live servers on Septemeber 17. The skins themselves are impressive, with stark color schemes across the board. …
Ninja calls out Valorant cheaters after streaming on Twitch
Olivia Richman
News
Hackers are trying to ruin Tyler “Ninja” Blevins’ new grind. The popular streamer has been playing a lot of Valorant since his return to Twitch. In a recent stream, the former Fortnite fanatic stated he’s been playing Valorant daily for the past 2.5 months in an attempt to get more skilled at Riot’s new tactical shooter. But Ninja’s momentum was destroyed earlier today when he ran into some possible hackers …
Valorant players can choose their skin variants in new patch
M Alzamora
News
With Valorant ditching Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s weapon loot boxes, Riot will now allow players to buy every type of skin outright. Starting with patch 1.09, Valorant players will be able to purchase a specific variant of a weapon skin, according to Riot’s ongoing question and answer series where the game’s developers answer community questions. While games such as CSGO already feature weapon skins, Valorant has taken the idea a step …
This is how many new agents Riot plans to add to Valorant
Olivia Richman
News
Valorant developers are planning to add a lot more agents to the game’s roster. The team at Riot Games has already confirmed that it plans on releasing six agents per year. The plan is to release one for every Act, meaning that the 13th agent will arrive on October 13. But will they continue giving players six new agents every year? According to Valorant developer Chris “Pwyff” Tom, that will …
Team Envy add food and crashies, drop 2 others from Valorant team
Fariha Bhatti
News
Only a week after getting released by T1, North American duo Austin “crashies” Roberts and Victor “food” Wong have found a new home in Team Envy. The duo will be replacing Adam “aKis” Kisseberth and Abdo “c4Lypso” Agha who have been moved to the team’s reserve roster. VALORANT Roster Update@aKisCSGO & @c4Lypso_ have been moved to the reserve roster.@Crashies & @food_cs will be playing on the starting roster.#TeamEnvy — Envy …
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.
