Developed by Riot games, Valorant is a brand new character-based competitive 5v5 FPS. Valorant has the potential to be a huge game for a number of reasons. If you’re someone who enjoys competitive shooters then you should probably be keeping an eye on it. Here is everything we know about Valorant right now.
What is Valorant?
Valorant is a character-based shooter that puts teams of 5 vs 5 players against each other in a best of 25, bomb defusal mode. Featuring 10 playable characters at launch each will have their own set of abilities that can provide them with a tactical edge during combat.
Valorant Release Date?
Coming in 2020, Valorant will be free to play upon launch and will feature a battle pass style system and sell cosmetic items. However, it will not feature loot boxes. Items such as sprays and weapon skins – confirmed so far, will be purchasable directly from the games store.
Stability and Performance
Riot is promising Valorant will feature 128 tick servers. Which essentially means that the server will update 128 times per second. What that means is that shots will more reliably land where you think they’re heading. Additionally, they’re looking to have the game running at a minimum of 30 fps on rigs up to a decade old. With 60 to 144+ on modern rigs. Riot has also committed to beating cheaters, with robust anti-cheat in place from day one.
Confirmed Characters
As of right now, we have 10 characters confirmed in the game. Each of them has their own unique abilities that, during the course of a match you can purchase. The use of abilities works slightly differently from what you might normally expect from something like Overwatch. Instead of your character’s abilities being on cooldown and available from the start of a match. Some of them will need to be bought at the beginning of the round. Abilities fall into three areas.
Ultimate Ability
A powerful ability that requires multiple charges in order to be used which are gained from completing objectives or getting kills. In some cases it could take multiple rounds before your in a position to be able to use it.
Signature Ability
An ability that’s usable automatically each round. Its use per round varies with each character.
Purchasable Abilities
Think of these as equipment in games like CSGO, like grenades or armour. Each character has two abilities that are purchasable at the beginning of a round.
If you want to read more about Valorant’s confirmed characters then head over here.
Valorant Weapons
Valorant takes place in a near-future version of our world and as a result, features weapons that bear some resemblance to real weapons. You can expect to be using handguns, sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, shotguns and more. All weapons keep a fairly realistic look to them although it’s possible that when more cosmetic items are released we may see a few more imaginative designs similar to how Apex Legends handles weapon skins.
Weapons in Valorant will need to be purchased at the beginning of rounds with cash earned whilst playing. Unless you survived a previous round, then you will still keep what you had bought before.
16 weapons have been confirmed so far and each one has it’s own cost, with presumably the ‘better’ weapons costing more. That being said, all weapons are still viable options to use. It’s just personal preference.
Valorant Maps
As of right now, there are only three maps confirmed for Valorant -Haven, Bind, and Split. However, there will obviously be more maps added to the game in the future. But just how many is unclear.
The Future Looks Bright
That’s everything we know about Valorant so far. For the competitive shooter fans out there, this could be a huge hit. The game already looks polished, and the gunplay appears to be accurate and responsive. The addition of character abilities provides something a little different and for myself who has been a big Overwatch fan I’m really excited to see how gameplay progresses the more people get used to playing with certain characters.
A lot of people are comparing Valorant to games like CSGO and Overwatch and whilst I can understand some of the comparisions. To me, Valorant looks like it is its own thing and has the potential to be huge.
-Will
