Valorant has been officially revealed by Riot Games. They announced last year that they were working on a competitive 5v5 shooter game, but they weren’t ready to show it off. Now we have a name and a bit of gameplay for Valorant, and it looks pretty familiar. While there’s nothing wrong with taking elements from other games in the same genre, Valorant feels like it couldn’t exist without every single other 5v5 shooter, which make some question just how good it might end up being.
Shooter Lasagne
The first and most obvious comparison we can pull for Valorant is between it and CS:GO. The map looks like it was pulled right from one of the most popular competitive shooters on the market, and the fact that the weapons look quite realistic doesn’t help. There’s also an objective that you can see being disarmed right at the end of the match, though how much this actually plays into each game remains to be seen. This comparison bleeds into another, this time with Rainbow Six Siege. The game has fantastical powers, but it feels like every character has a very specific role to play, which is something that Rainbow Six Siege gets right every time.
Of course, the thing most people will see when they look at Valorant is Overwatch. There’s a cast of quirky characters who all have different abilities. There’s a dart that reveals the enemy’s location, a powerful gas cloud that swamps the map, barriers that can be created, and floating knives. Each character has an ultimate ability which will play into the endgame of every match, that much is clear from the gameplay, but they also compliment each other. Overwatch perfected this system, and now it’s being used in Valorant.
We’ll go into more specifics in a later article. For now, we can see that Valorant is a good-looking game, providing a place where teams can work together towards a common goal. It sounds like the way people play together will form the core gameplay, rather than the elements that are there. I think that’s why this looks like a culmination of lots of parts, because the most important part. is widespread gameplay among a community of players who enjoy it.
Valorant seems to be slated for a summer 2020 release, but it’s not particularly clear if that will be in beta or a full release. We’ll keep you posted as this news develops.