You may recall that we covered a possible name for Riot Games’ upcoming first-person shooter Project Ares. The game was possibly known as Valorant, revealed through a Twitter account name and a trademark filed by Riot themselves. We can now confirm that the name is indeed Valorant, as announced early this morning from the official Valorant twitter account. The game will release in the summer of 2020 following a beta period.
Valorant is slated to include eight characters at launch. These characters are Sage, Cypher, Brimstone, Jett, Phoenix, Viper, Sova, and Omen. Each character is from a specific part of the world, and each comes with skills. Sage, for example, can create barriers, healing areas, and slow areas with orbs. She can also revive a teammate and bring them back into the fight. Fans of hero-based shooters like Overwatch and Paladins will feel a sense of familiarity with this.
They aren’t the only ones who will feel at home though, as CS: GO shares a lot of similarities with this game. You’ll be able to buy an array of guns using the money you earn each round. What shakes things up quite a bit though is that you buy your abilities along with tactical items (grenades, flashbangs, etc). This should create a lot of new strategies, as buying something like Sage’s resurrect could turn the tide of a round. Along with the buy menu, there’s, of course, the Search and Destroy mode but with Reactors instead of bombs. This doesn’t change too much, but it’s a nice little touch nonetheless.
As you might’ve expected though, this game doesn’t just share similarities with other titles. It iterates on what’s there to create a better experience and stand out. One such example of this is in your buy menu. There is a sidebar that allows you to communicate with your team, buy them items, and see their equipment. The communication aspect seems to be brought over from League of Legends which is nice to see. That game’s team communication options are considered incredibly helpful by many and should be the same here. There is also a period where you can move around and prepare which should open up some new strategies. These are just a few examples, with a myriad of fresh things coming to Valorant.
If you want to see more regarding Valorant than we’ve talked about here, there’s more details and gameplay on their official website. There were also a bunch of screenshots leaked yesterday morning through IGN (one of which is the one above). There’s a lot to talk about here, and we should see a lot of competitive communities discussing it in the weeks to come. Are you excited to play Valorant? What character are you most excited to try? Let us know, and stay tuned at The Nerd Stash for all your news, reviews, and more!
