Riot Games’ upcoming tactical shooter isn’t even out yet and it’s already the hottest topic in recent times. Today we take a look at everything we know about Valorant.
Valorant is being developed and published by Riot Games. The company’s most well-known game that they’re famous for is League of Legends which is arguably the most played game in the world. In October the studio announced that they’ll be releasing 7 new games from various genres. Fans were finally thrilled that Riot will live up to the “Games” part in their name.
After the hype train that was Auto Chess, almost every big company developed their own version of it. For Valve it was Underlords, for Blizzard it was Hearthstone Battlegrounds and for Riot – Teamfight Tactics. Riot Games are also developing a card game called Legends of Runeterra. Valorant was one of those 7 new titles and it was initially called Project A. So what do we know about Project A/Valorant?
Tactical shooter
Valorant will feature two teams made up of 5 players each on a map with 2 or 3 bomb sites. Looking at gameplay footage it quickly becomes clear that the game will have an in-game economy much like CS:GO. Playable characters resemble those found in Overwatch, each with their unique set of abilities that give them the edge in different scenarios. Combining Overwatch abilities with a variety of guns will give players plenty of options to deal with every situation. Riot’s idea is to make a skill-based shooter ready directly for the competitive scene.
Available platforms
Riot made it clear that their focus will be exclusively for PC players. This comes as no surprise as the two main competitors (CS:GO and Overwatch) are also PC titles. Whether we’ll see mobile or console versions of the game is uncertain and only time will tell.
Better servers
Almost every big shooter today is using 64 tick servers – CS:GO, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Rainbow 6. Some sites like FACEIT provide 128 ticks, but they’re subscription-based and therefore not part of the official servers. Riot’s idea is to have 128 ticks from the start, which will no doubt give them the advantage and make it even more tempting for new players to try it out. The developers are also aiming at a very low latency of less than 35 ms.
Free to play
Valorant will release as a free to play title, just like League of Legends. The same can’t be said for any of the other popular shooters as the only exception is CS:GO which became free to play in the last few years. Riot’s game is expected to have microtransactions in the form of character and weapon skins, much like CS:GO. This means that all of those will be purely cosmetic and won’t give anyone an advantage in terms of gameplay. Hopefully.While the game itself will be free to play, part of the agents will be locked behind playtime or simply cashing them out with real money. That’s one of the negative sides of Valorant as in CS:GO and Overwatch everything is available from the very start. It makes no difference if you’re a veteran player or just joined in.
Anti-cheat
One of the biggest problems in CS:GO and other shooters is the aspect of cheating. Sure the game has a built in system to detect them, but the existence of cheaters, proves it’s inefficient. Riot plan to address the issue from the start and take precautions to prevent it as a whole. Add to that the fact that the title will be free to play and you’ll understand why they’re worried. If the game goes live and rampant hacking is present, nobody will want to play it. Speed hacks should be a thing of the past since authorization happens on the server side and not the player’s. Cheaters will be banned as soon as the system detects them and there won’t be a need for a report. Players who were stuck in a game with a hacker will receive no penalties as the match prematurely ends.
System requirements
It’s a well-known fact that League of Legends can run on a potato. This might also be one of the reasons the game enjoys such a popularity, but what about Valorant? Riot seem to be taking the same approach by trying to make their new title as accessible as possible. Here are also the rumored requirements for the game:
- Minimum
CPU: Intel i3-370MCPU SPEED: InfoRAM: 4 GBOS: Windows 7/8/10 64-bitVIDEO CARD: Intel HD 3000PIXEL SHADER: 3.0VERTEX SHADER: 3.0
- Recommended
CPU: Core i5-4460CPU SPEED:RAM: 4 GBOS: Windows 7/8/10 64-bitVIDEO CARD: GTX 1050 TiPIXEL SHADER: 5.1VERTEX SHADER: 5.1DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 4096 MB
To be honest, this is basically as low as the game can afford to drop. The Intel i3-370M was released in 2010, while Intel HD graphics 3000 came in 2011. If a 10-year-old system can run it, everything should be able to.
Release date
Perhaps the biggest question of them all – When is Valorant coming out? Riot haven’t been very vocal about an official release date, but it’s expected to be this year with many fans predicting Summer of 2020. Then again there’s the coronavirus outbreak which we’ve already seen cancel or postpone many events. It won’t be too surprising if the game gets delayed because of it too.That sums pretty much everything we know about Valorant. Are you excited about Riot’s shooter or is it a pass from you?
