Valorant
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All the key points and features in Valorant’s new map Icebox
Olivia Richman
After weeks of teasing, Valorant finally introduced a new map called Icebox. Icebox will be coming to Valorant when Act III begins next week. The snow-covered map features a giant battleship on one side of the map, pulled into a dockyard with large shipping containers. There’s a big building with multiple floors on the other side of the map, complete with ropes that appear to act like ziplines. Parts of …
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Riot plans competitive matchmaking changes for Valorant Act 3
Fariha Bhatti
Riot’s tactical shooter Valorant will soon be getting some significant updates to its competitive matchmaking. The changes will be implemented in Act 3, which begins on October 27. Riot announced upcoming changes in competitive mode in the new episode of developer diaries. Game director Joe Ziegler and systems design lead David Cole talked about the issues in matchmaking and discussed future updates that fans should expect from Act 3. Matchmaking …
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Your ultimate guide to Valorant shotguns
Olivia Richman
Valorant’s shotguns play a big role in Riot’s first-person shooter. But which of the shotguns are the best to use, and when do you want to use them? To properly excel at Valorant, players must first understand the game’s economy. There’s a buy phase at the start of each round, allowing agents to purchase weapons and abilities with creds earned in previous rounds. Players earn creds through results. For example, …
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Viper still rarely played after buffs, but is she still bad?
Fariha Bhatti
Riot’s tactical shooter Valorant initially featured ten agents, with Viper being one of the fan favourites due to her feisty aesthetic. However, Viper soon became the least picked agent and recent buffs are not helping her. The toxic agent may have a sharp appearance, but players are not a fan of her kit. Viper is the least picked agent with a 3.2% pick rate alongside the initiator Breach, according to …
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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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Valorant’s skin bundles are only available for a limited time
M Alzamora
Riot’s monetization plans may not include loot boxes, but the developer has found a safer way to entice players into buying Valorant’s cosmetic weapon bundles. Valorant’s high-end weapon skin bundles are only available in a collection format for a limited time before the cosmetics leave the store forever. While players may get the opportunity to purchase the game’s flashy skins, like those found in its Elderflame Collection, they will only …
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The operator finally gets nerfed, but not everyone agrees
Olivia Richman
Valorant developers have big nerfs in mind for the Operator after players have continued to call the weapon OP. At first, developers seemingly denied that the Operator was overpowered despite many players claiming there were no strategies to outplay the expensive weapon. Valorant game designer Nicholas “Nickwu” Smith said in a developer blog that the Operator wasn’t OP, but that developers were looking for ways to “smooth out the experience.” …
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Former CSGO pros are winning most Valorant tournaments
M Alzamora
Former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro players have won almost all of Valorant’s cash prizes since the game’s esports debut. Counter-Strike players that have switched from Valve’s shooter to Valorant esports make up 88% of the game’s top prize winners. The top ten teams in prize money for Riot’s ability-based tactical shooter are enjoying the skills of CSGO’s deep talent pool, with 44 out 50 players on those teams having started …
Stats show that every Valorant map favors the defense
M Alzamora
News
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, …
Valorant’s new G.U.N. skin line inspired by science fiction
Olivia Richman
News
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. …
Valorant exploring left-hand view models, hit registration
M Alzamora
News
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 …
Valorant to host First Strike event to crown first world champion
gabhernandez
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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. …
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.
