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Riot is most definitely not the best gaming company. They stumbled upon a gold mine. From the past few years, I've only liked a handful of the things that they have released that are related to League, mostly of which are lore/design/music related.
Jun 18, 2020 · It can mean many different things when someone says that the shooting, or action, in a game feels good, so what did Riot Games do with the gunplay in Valorant that makes it work so well?
- Clever tactical shooting that's plenty deep, and a lot of fun to master.
- Gameplay Screenshots of Valorant (Closed Beta)
- Secret Agent Man
- Living To Buy
- Microtransaction Reaction
- Do you buy cosmetic items with real money in free-to-play games?
- Verdict
By Kyle Campbell
Updated: Mar 1, 2021 7:54 pm
Posted: Jun 5, 2020 10:24 pm
Nail-biting bomb plants, hip fire headshots, and hypernatural flicks of the wrist are the tenets of Valorant. This 5v5 tactical hero shooter by League of Legends developer Riot Games had a stranglehold on me from my first carefully strategized victory. Now, after clocking 90 hours between the closed beta and the full release, I'm still utterly enamored with the brilliant implementation of its superpowered cast and stellar gunplay. The learning curve is steep, but once the cogs of mastery clicked together, it became damn near impossible for me to put Valorant down.
While thunderous, Overwatch-style ultimate abilities in a reserved tactical shooter might raise an eyebrow, the time-to-kill in Valorant remains extraordinarily low: a single, well-placed bullet can spell your end. It creates a spectacular sense of tension, encouraging scenarios where the rattle of distant gunfire sends chills down your spine even as flashy abilities are being popped. When hellfire rains from the sky, it’s a sign that Brimstone is only a hop and a skip away, so best get out of the way no matter how pinned-down you might be.
During my first few matches, I worried that ults might hurt that on-edge atmosphere and homogenize strategy to be all about their timing and use. Thankfully, those concerns were unwarranted, because Valorant balances ults by making them cost points instead of attaching them to a cooldown timer. You gain these points by dying, collecting static resource nodes, and, most importantly: killing opponents. Burning an ult means drying up yet another precious resource, so I spent them tactfully.
There’s a layer of depth that hero shooters don’t often have.
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My go-to Agent is Sage, a combat medic with elemental frost powers. She has a barrier orb that walls off entrances and a slow orb that covers a portion of the ground in sheets of ice, but I have to fork over money I earn from kills and winning rounds to use them. If you want to maximize an Agent's combat potential, then you'd better know how to budget abilities along with guns – especially considering that you’re stuck with whatever Agent you chose at the start of a match the whole way through. Thankfully, it’s not a big deal if their toolkit isn’t to your liking since Agents don’t fit into the hard tank, healer, and DPS roles that are so common in hero shooters.
"There are two attackers left, and they're rotating from bombsite A towards B," my teammate warned over voice chat. "I'll flank, hold them off until then." My heart began to race. I was defending bombsite B by myself, and it was going to take some crafty deployment of Sage's toolkit to make sure I didn't push up any daisies. So I quickly threw up an ice wall, blocking off the choke point to my right. If they wanted to get past, they'd have to blow my wall apart – giving away their position. I crouched in a corner with my rifle trained at the bombsite's second entrance to the left, anxiously awaiting the pitter-patter of footsteps. Then I heard some, and immediately tossed Sage's slow orb in their direction. With the ground covered in ice, I took a peek to see if I'd caught anyone in my icy snare – and I did!
It was Raze, a demolition expert with an itchy trigger finger, and she was already midway through tossing her grenade ability in my direction. I quickly fired a three-round burst at her, with the final bullet hitting her between eyes, and a lava lamp-styled blood pattern erupted from her skull. It was a thrilling exchange, but there was no time to celebrate. "Nowhere to run," shouted Sova, a valiant archer, from behind Raze's corpse. That shout signified his ult, and he began launching massive energy-infused arrows in my direction. Luckily, my teammate finally arrived with his flanking maneuver and managed to snipe Sova from behind, saving my butt. Every match is a rush packed with strategic back-and-forths like this, and the hero-shooter tinge only increases the tension in the best way.
Valorant's minimalist art style is tailored for combat readability.
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It also helps that Valorant's minimalist art style is tailor-made for combat readability in matches. Every visual cue, from a simple muzzle flash to an elaborate ult, is instantly recognizable thanks to the clearly defined art. When Sage throws her slow orb, it flies through the air with a bright blue sheen, contrasting well with the brown cobblestone of walls found in most maps. Not even chaotic firefights will downplay an orb's luster because of the emphasis on a less-is-more color palette. While I'm not a fan of the uninspired character designs and flat particle effects on their own, everything comes together in a way that makes engagements easy to understand from a visual standpoint, and I love that.
My adoration for Valorant's hero-shooter elements only grew as I discovered all the tactical wiggle-room born from the synergy between its cast's supernatural powers. I love deploying an old-fashioned bamboozle, especially the sort that involves flanking the enemy team. Omen, a spectral assassin that's particularly fond of edgy quips, just so happens to be well-versed in the art of skirting.
In a particularly dicey match as Omen, myself and a friend were all that remained of our attacking team, with four defenders still on their feet. We had just planted the spike, and the defenders weren't happy about it, furiously storming the bomb site from a single choke-point. My friend was Viper, a narcissistic chemical-warfare expert. She tossed an acid grenade, landing at their feet, temporarily slowing the advance. I placed Omen's Dark Cover ability on the right side the choke-point, creating a visibility-smearing cloud of smoke. They deduced that I must've been to the right as well, blindly firing in that direction in hopes of tagging me while soaking up the acid's corrosive damage in the process. Unfortunately for them, I popped Omen's From The Shadows ultimate, which allowed me to teleport to their flank. With the defenders startled and sandwiched between us, my friend and I took them out in a symphony of bullets.
Valorant is free-to-play with a wealth of cosmetics to unlock, but most are only attainable by swiping your credit card. Stuff like gun skins, spray paint tags, stylized particle effects for gunfire, finishers, alternative sound effects for weapons, and little decorative gun charms called buddies are all available via the in-game store. You'll need to buy Valorant Points, an in-game currency only obtainable with real money, for the best goodies in particular. Valorant Points come in several bundles: 475 for $4.99, 1000 for $9.99, 2050 for $19.99, 3650 for $34.99, 5350 for $49.99, and 11000 for $99.99. Thankfully, none of the in-game purchases are of the pay-to-win sort.
Not all of the cosmetics require real money thanks to the Battlepass. It contains all kinds of unique items like those mentioned above, and everyone gets access to the base version of it for free. While there's a premium upgrade available for 1000 Valorant Points, it only adds a small handful of additional rewards and primarily just levels up your Battlepass more quickly. If you complete the weekly challenges and earn experience, you can unlock nearly all the same stuff.
Yes, regularly
Sometimes, but not often
No, never
Unfortunately, not every Agent is available from the get-go. While five of its 11 are available to all players by default and you are able to choose two more to unlock for free soon after you start playing, the rest must be unlocked through their Contracts – a progression system filled with rewards related to each Agent. The Agents themselves unlock at the 5th tier of their Contract, so you either have to earn enough experience through playing to finally get access to them or spend Valorant Points to unlock them immediately. Aside from the Agents, I've never felt compelled to spend money on Valorant, nor would doing so buy me any competitive edge.
Thankfully, no matter who you’re playing with, all the dazzling magic in the world won't carry the team if you can't aim well. Each of the 17 guns at your disposal in Valorant has an elaborate and unique recoil pattern. I spent several hours at the in-game firing range, shooting away at practice dummies and trying to hone the finesse required to properly wield my favorite firearms. For example, the Vandal assault rifle sways from left to right if you unload a full clip in one go. It only takes a shot or two to the head from the Vandal to kill an opponent, so spraying and praying is not only a waste of ammo, but all the noise from a booming automatic rifle will give away your position, too. Bullets will also fly all over the place if you try to shoot while moving. It was a fun challenge to learn how to plant my feet quickly, take a few burst shots, and then proceed.
The ferocious Operator sniper rifle requires a solid step too; however, it doesn't care that its deafening slugs will shake your headphones. It's the most expensive gun for a good reason: take a shot to the head or torso from this beast, and you'll be eating dirt even while sporting heavy armor. The risk-reward balance of buying either the Operator or the Vandal is what I love about the economy in Valorant. The former will down your quarry in one blow, but the expensive buy-in and slow reload time make it a gamble to purchase. While the latter is a workhorse: semi-automatic, useful at any range, cheaper, but the recoil makes it tougher to control. Learning the ins-and-outs of each weapon in Valorant is a game in and of itself.
Valorant is the most fun I've had with a multiplayer FPS since Valve's Team Fortress 2. The flexibility of its magically-infused cast paired with a deep arsenal makes for a magnificent competitive canvas, if a tricky one to initially pick up. I'm already pondering new strategies to pull off with my friends in the future, and that joyous daydreaming...
- Contributor
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Jun 11, 2020 · Platform: PC. Genre: Shooter. Developer: Riot Games. Release Date: Out Now. Valorant is a new free-to-play tactical shooter, taking the pinpoint gunplay and claustrophobic maps from...
- Riot Games
Jun 4, 2020 · Riot's competitive shooter is just barely out of beta, yet it already stands toe-to-toe with the biggest games in its genre. It helps that Valorant comes from a gigantic studio and that its...
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Jun 2, 2020 · Valorant doesn't stray too far from Riot Games' plethora of hero-focused titles. With the fusion of high-level gunplay and hero mechanics, Valorant is both highly competitive and unfortunately too highly skill focused for casual players to enjoy.
