What is Valorant?

We've got our first official look at Valorant, Riot Games' first-person shooter. It was hinted at towards the end of 2019 with a lot of speculation about what it could be and how it was going to play out. Now we have our answer.

Image via Riot Games

Valorant takes place in a near-future Earth, where all of the characters in the game are hypernatural individuals. The maps and locations used in the game are inspired by several real world locations and different cultures.

Image via Riot Games

Valorant looks like a mix between Rainbow Six: Siege, Counter-strike: Global Offensive, with a handful of Overwatch elements. The game has two teams made up of five players on each side, where they face off in a fast-paced match made up of the best of 24 rounds, with one attacking team and another defending team.

Image via Riot Games

Each character has a unique ability. These abilities reinforce a character's role in combat, don't give them a significant advantage, or make them an overpowering choice. They can change your role in battle, such as having a healer to rely on or someone to revive a downed teammate or someone to build a wall to protect your team as they retreat or regroup.

Image via Riot Games

Each character has access to the same weapons. There is no restriction. If you find a weapon that matches your gameplay, you can give them to every character in the game and use it in every match. The weapons you are allowed to use come from a round-based income saving for your team. This type of gameplay relies on teams communicating with each other to ensure that the internal economy benefits everyone.

While Valorant has characters that use a variety of different abilities, the primary focus of the game is the efficiency of a player's accuracy. You will still be able to beat another player if you consistently do a headshot against them, even if that player is faster than you and can land a few body shots. Three to four shots at a player's body will take them out, but a headshot is a one hit kill.

Image via Riot Games

We can expect regular updates from Valorant's gameplay as the game's fan base grows and the competitive scene comes to life. As of yet, we don't have an exact projection of how many characters, new weapons, new maps, or new game modes Riot Games plans to release for Valorant's Future.

Valorant releases on PC during the summer of 2020. We do not have an exact date, and we do not know if Riot Games plans to release a beta of the game for players to test before its official release. As of now, we have a handful of useful information, and we're excited to try the game out when it releases to the public.