Everything we know about Riot’s FPS title Valorant

After months of waiting, Riot Games have finally decided to release the official gameplay preview for Valorant, as well as a plethora of other details about the company's first FPS title.

Valorant, previously known simply as "Project A" has been first announced back in October, during League of Legends' 10-year anniversary, alongside other Riot Games' projects such as Wild Rift, mobile version of Teamfight Tactics, fighting game dubbed Project L, open-world co-op RPG title – Project F, LoL Esports Manager game and the already released strategy card game Legends of Runeterra.

Although all ambitious projects from Riot Games, which gained a lot of attention from the gaming community, it was the mysterious Project A that took the community by storm. Earlier last month, leaks suggested the Riot's project will be named Valorant, which was later confirmed by the LoL developer themselves.

Since its first announcement, plenty of leaked images and details about Valorant surfaced, further adding to the hype surrounding Riot's first-ever FPS title, which soon gained the tag of the next big thing in the FPS genre, with many comparing it to Counter-Strike, as the leading game in the scene.

This Sunday, March 1, however, Riot Games decided to put an end to the leaks and speculations by publishing more information as well as releasing the first official gameplay preview of the upcoming 5v5 character-based tactical shooter on Valorant's YouTube channel.

Although many people compared Valorant to the CS:GO, one of the most popular games in the FPS genre, Riot's game bears some striking differences, which make it stand out. As already revealed before, Valorant will be a character-based tactical shooter, featuring several characters – also known as agents, each with their own background and set of abilities, which they will use on the battlefield to gain a tactical advantage over their adversaries.

In a way, the Valorant's agents are similar to Overwatch heroes, due to having their own abilities as well as an ultimate ability. That said, Riot Games explained that these abilities have not been implemented to take over the gameplay, but rather serve merely as tactical options, which should, in theory, add more complexity and more in-depth strategy to the game. As of today, there are a total of seven agents that we know of, which include Viper, Phoenix, Jett, Sage, Cypher, Sova and Brimstone.

Besides the agent options, we also got introduced to vast weaponry of futuristic weapons which will be available in Valorant. Although the characteristics of the weapons are still a mystery, the gameplay footage unveiled there will be a total of four sidearms (pistols), two SMGs, two types of Shotguns, four types of rifles, two snipers and two LMG-type weapons. Adding to the weapons, the buy menu also unveiled players will be able to purchase shields (similarly to CS:GO armour) and will have to spend money on their ability charges.

Although many features differentiate Valorant to CS:GO, the premise of the game will be the same. Gunplay will be at the forefront of Valorant, where the gunfights are relatively quick and deadly since time-to-kill seems to be very low, as it's the case with CS:GO. Much like Valve's tactical shooter, Valorant will use a round-based system, however, it will feature best-of-24 rounds instead of 30 rounds, fielding attackers and defenders rather than terrorists and counter-terrorists.

What's more, Riot Games unveiled they will make sure to offer its players with the best possible competitive experience, by adding dedicated 128-tick servers for all players while guaranteeing less than 35ms ping in most major cities around the world.

As for the war against cheaters, Riot Games revealed they will implement a new cheat detection tool, Vanguard, which will constantly receive updates and instantly ban cheaters and end the compromised games. To further strengthening their anty-cheat system, Valorant will also have a unique in-game fog-of-war, which will block the player's location until right before they get into the line of sight, making world-hacking difficult or entirely impossible.

Riot Games have yet to reveal the exact release date of Valorant, however, if everything goes to plan, the game should go live sometime in summer 2020. Many people will also be glad to hear that Riot Games stuck with their business model of offering free games, as Valorant will be available for everyone at launch, while it's possible there will be some kind of in-game cosmetic shop, with weapon skins, agent's costumes and more.