Valorant
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More than 1,600 new cheaters were just banned from Valorant
Olivia Richman
Love it or hate it, Vanguard is doing its job of catching cheaters in new first-person shooter Valorant. Riot’s anti-cheat data engineer Philip Koskinas recently took to Twitter to celebrate that over 1,600 more cheaters have been kicked off the Valorant closed beta. “1,600 Valorant accounts just went missing and we’re still geeked up off the ban juice,” Koskinas said. 1600 VALORANT accounts just went missing and we’re still geeked …
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dafran given lifetime ban by Valorant organizer after Twitter meltdown
Steven Rondina
Daniel “dafran” Francesca’s career in Valorant is not off to an especially great start. That isn’t because of his actual skills in the game are lacking. The former Atlanta Reign DPS player is on the rocks these days with French tournament organizer and esports organization Solary due to his team’s ejection from a tournament, which was followed by a lifelong ban from all future Solary events. “Today, the player dafran …
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A collection of the most spicy and dank Valorant memes we could find
Olivia Richman
When a new game comes out, everyone is dying to try it out. But new games also mean new memes, and that’s almost as important as the game itself. Valorant is still in closed beta, but there’s already a pretty good number of memes about Riot’s new first-person shooter. Even if the game goes through changes before its official release this summer, the memes will live on in our hearts, …
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Is Valorant coming to mobile or consoles? Here’s what we know
Steven Rondina
Valorant is one of the hottest topics in all of video games right now. Riot Games’ fusion of tactical and hero shooters has dominated social media for weeks and caught mainstream attention in a big way. The game is currently available in closed beta exclusively for PC, and that has many gamers wondering when, or if, it might come to their own favorite platforms. So does Riot Games have anything …
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This Valorant shotgun reload bug lets shotguns fire non-stop
M Alzamora
Shotguns aren’t always a popular class of weapon in competitive first-person shooters. An oversight by Riot Games could quickly change all that. The Bucky is one of Valorant’s two shotguns, and normally players have to sit through a long reload after they use the weapon’s five chambered rounds. But a recent video shows a new way to keep the Bucky firing for much longer by reloading between each shot. The …
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Forsen reveals the reason behind his Twitch ban in defiant rant
Olivia Richman
Four days after Sebastian “Forsen” Fors was banned from Twitch, the streamer has come forward with the reason behind his lengthy suspension. “I was banned for two weeks for saying ‘retarded Russians’ instead of ‘retarded people who can’t participate in voice comms in Valorant due to legal reasons,'” Forsen said on Twitter. Banned for 2 weeks for saying retarded russians instead of retarded “people who cant participate in voice comms …
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Freakazoid, Zellsis, other CSGO pros leave for Valorant esports
Olivia Richman
Ryan “freakazoid” Abadir is the latest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro to leave the scene to pursue a career in Riot Games’ new first-person shooter, Valorant. “Sometimes life says out with the old and gotta go with the new. I’m quitting CS and going to be playing Valorant,” freakazoid tweeted earlier today. The 27-year-old CSGO veteran was in the pro Counter-Strike scene for 10 years. He played for Cloud9 in 2015 …
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CSGO veteran fRoD joins T1 as Valorant head coach
Olivia Richman
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive veteran Daniel “fRoD” Montaner has been announced as T1’s head coach for Valorant. One of the most decorated players in CS:GO history, with championships on championships under his belt as both a player and a coach. We’re happy to welcome @OfficialfRoD as our head coach for Valorant, to further our org’s winning tradition in NA! #T1WIN pic.twitter.com/7gQpQSv1NA — T1 (@T1) May 7, 2020 fRoD was one of …
Forsen was just banned from Twitch, was toxic behavior to blame?
Olivia Richman
News
Twitch streamer Sebastian “Forsen” has just been banned from the streaming platform. Forsen hasn’t released any statement on the ban, so it’s unclear how long his account will be suspended or what the punishment is specifically for. According to some of his viewers, the Swedish streamer was being toxic in chat while playing Valorant, and this is what most likely led to his ban. Forsen was allegedly “flaming” his teammates …
Riot releases new fix for Vanguard’s aggressive driver blocking
M Alzamora
News
Riot Games released a patch for Valorant’s anticheat Vanguard, which the developer says will stop the program from blocking essential drivers. The fix comes nearly a week after WIN.gg’s report that Riot’s anticheat system was actively blocking the drivers that controlled cooling systems for PC hardware from a variety of manufacturers. The fix targets a program called CPU-Z, a hardware monitoring tool included with many active cooling systems from manufacturers …
This is how to unlock new agents and cosmetics in Valorant
M Alzamora
News
Valorant’s beta is in full swing, and with its summer release window fast approaching, players better get a move on if they want to try all of Valorant’s characters before the game releases. Valorant has a solid distribution of characters available to players as soon as they get access to the game’s closed beta test. Six characters are available from the beginning, each showing off a different class or style …
Valorant designer responds to complaints over closed beta’s easy maps
Olivia Richman
News
Players participating in Valorant’s closed beta have consistently been complaining about the three available maps and their designs. For more experienced players coming over from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the three Valorant maps feel simple and uncomplicated. They feel all three maps use the same formula, including one major issue: the amount of corners. Many fans are in agreement that there are way too many corners to check. One fan said …
Cloud9 streamer TenZ becomes first Valorant ranked player in NA
Olivia Richman
News
The Valorant closed beta added a ranked mode just a few days ago, but retired Conter-Strike: Global offensive player Tyson “TenZ” Ngo sprinted his way to becoming the first North American player to reach its highest rank. FIRST NA VALORANT RANKED PLAYER pic.twitter.com/6WKfbBbDtP — TenZ / Tyson (C9) (@TenZ_CS) May 2, 2020 The Cloud9 streamer is one of many competitive CSGO players to turn to Valorant, Riot’s new FPS. They …
Valorant’s Vanguard anticheat is killing CPU coolers on startup
M Alzamora
News
When Valorant was announced, developer Riot Games revealed that it would come bundled with a new anti-cheat so strong that it would be almost impossible to cheat inside the popular new first-person shooter. In addition to preventing cheaters from ruining gamer’s nights, however, it seems like Vanguard’s anti-cheat is working a little too well. Citing stories from accross Reddit, Twitter, and even here on WIN.gg’s test build, Valorant’s Vanguard anti-cheat …
From CSGO to Valorant: What players must know about the switch
M Alzamora
News
Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive have a fair amount in common, but there are some pretty big differences between Valve’s classic shooter and Riot Games’ entry into the genre. Here are some of the biggest differences between the granddaddy of competitive shooters and Riot’s addicting entry. In Counter-Strike, corner camping is almost impossible. The corners in Valve’s FPS are very shallow, meaning that as long as the player peeks them …
Learn from Dafran how to do this OP footsteps trick in Valorant
Olivia Richman
News
Former Overwatch League pro Daniel “Dafran” Francesca has been discovering a lot of tricks and techniques while playing Valorant. Recently, Dafran decided to play around with foosteps, a big part of Valorant’s gameplay. He turned the master volume up to show his followers something possibly game-breaking he’d discovered. Working with the enemy team in chat, Dafran instructed them to make their way through Split’s B site. With no gunshots, Dafran …
How to get ranked in Valorant: All ranks revealed
M Alzamora
News
Valorant’s recent patch came with a whole host of bug fixes and quality of life improvements, but the biggest news out of the recent patch is the addition of a ranked mode to Riot Games’ new first-person shooter. There are only a few requirements before players can be assigned a rank, and most who have been playing the open beta should already meet the criteria to start their placement games. …
Dr Disrespect mocks summit, xQc for caring about Valorant on Twitch
Olivia Richman
News
Big names in the streaming community have been getting fed up with the Valorant category on Twitch. In partnership with Twitch, Riot Games has been offering closed beta access to Valorant via drops, earned by watching streamers with “drops enabled” on their channel. This was seen as an innovative way to provide access to a closed beta at first, but many content creators now seem tired of the concept. One …
Tips and tricks to best use your abilities in Valorant’s closed beta
Olivia Richman
News
For many Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players, having abilities is a brand new concept in a first-person shooter. Pros and streamers alike have already mastered Valorant’s mechanics. Now, former CSGO players, along with Apex Legends and Overwatch players, are diving into each agent’s abilities and finding some crazy techniques and hidden tricks. There are also a lot of glitches and exploits in Valorant since it’s still just a closed beta. Most of …
Data miner finds new ranked titles and more in Valorant
Olivia Richman
News
“Finally, a rank below Bronze! My true home awaits.” A data miner, FloxaY, revealed the new titles for Valorant’s yet-to-be-released ranked mode. The unveiled ranking system is a lot different from last month’s playtest. The highest rank is now Immortal, followed by Diamond, and then Platinum. The lowest is not Bronze, but Iron. Last month, Valorant’s ranks in the alpha playtest were Mercenary, Soldier, Veteran, Hero, Legend, Mythic and Immortal. …
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.
