Riot Games has been working on various new projects from different genres to further expand on its worldwide popular League of Legend brand. There have been a lot of titles released and announced, from Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra to Wild Rift. Unlike its competitor, Valve, Riot actually spends a lot of effort working on those games and most of them have enjoyed a certain degree of success.
Just now, they have decided to announce yet another title: Valorant. The free to play hero shooter will be available in Summer 2020. In this article, we would answer some of the most asked questions about this title:
When is Valorant’s release date and would there be a beta?
The release date for the game is not confirmed – we have only gotten a release window. However, a period of beta would be made available.
What is Valorant?
This is a 5 vs 5 hero shooter with a completely new cast unrelated to League’s Champions set in Earth’s near future. 10 characters would be available at launch, with more going to be released periodically afterward. Each character would have three normal abilities and one ultimate ability, just like in a normal Moba (you have to buy two abilities with money, however). While this game seems to be Overwatch at first, a lot of the gameplay is inspired by Counter-Strike, as ultimate abilities have an extremely long cooldown and the only game mode available at launch is bomb defusal. Characters in-game would be able to use multiple gun types, unlike in Overwatch.
What are Valorant’s heroes?
The 8 out of 10 characters available at launch are:
Sova: Fires wall piercing arrow and teleport
Phoenix: Can control flashbang at will
Cypher: Can lay mines and create sentry to watch out for attacks
Jett: Can leap and throw knives
Viper: Can create poison clouds to blind enemies and damage them
Brimstone: Can call in airstrikes
Sage: Medic with the ability to heal or revive
Omen: Can get behind enemy lines and blind them
What about the guns in Valorant?
Similar to counter strike, you would have to purchase weapons at the beginning of each round – and any character can use any type of weapon. There would be every type of weapon that often gets included in FPS: Sidearms, Melee, SMGs, Shotguns, Snipers, Rifles, Heavies….
How will the game’s microtransaction work?
Apparently, you would have to unlock characters similar to League of Legends by either playing or buying with real money. Cosmetics would also be available, with skins for characters and guns and sprays…
What about Valorant’s Anti Cheat System and Servers?
Looks like Riot is going to deal with the traditional problems that FPS games usually have using a different approach. According to the developer, their kernel-based anti-cheat system would nullify most types of common hacks like wallhack or speed hack or aim hack. They have designed the game taking all those exploits in mind – for example, the cursor won’t change color when hovering over an enemy (cheaters could take advantage of that to write an aimbot script).
About the servers, Riot is going to use the existing technology that they are developing for League of Legends on this title, in order to provide the player with consistently lag-free experience. Each region’s dedicated servers would run at a 128 tick rate, which is very crucial in shooters. Other competitors like CS:GO and Apex Legends use much lower infrastructure, at 64 and 20 respectively.
Valorant would also be a part of Riot Direct as well, which is a type of network that would reduce the distance from your connection to the game servers, which leads to a better connection.
Interested in more pictures of this game? Please check out this post from Gurugamer for a gallery.
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