Riot Games' 5v5 Tactical FPS Is Officially Called Valorant

Riot Games has given their shooter an official name - Valorant, a 5 versus 5 tactical first-person shooter coming out Summer 2020 as a free-to-play title.

First announced as Project A, this is one of Riot Games’ many projects announced during the League of Legends 10th anniversary celebration back in October 2019. The developers described Valorant as a “precise skill, high stakes, lethal gameplay, and clutch moments that rewards creative gameplay styles.”

Players will get to pick from a diverse set of agents equipped with unique abilities that separate one from the other while promoting team synergy and strategy. Based on the latest footage released, Valorant is an interesting mix of Overwatch’s unique character skill loadout and Counter-Strike’s precise gun play.

“By adding unique character abilities that complement the game’s gunplay we believe we’re expanding upon the traditional tac shooter experience” says Anna Donlon, Executive Producer of Valorant over at Riot Games.

The ability to purchase weapons before a round starts plus skills and items unique to certain characters is definitely an interesting take on the genre. But what’s more interesting is Riot Games commitment in reducing server lag for all players from around the globe. Valorant will launch with dedicated 128hz tick rate servers capable of running at up to 144 fps.

To put it simply, the developers have invested in back-end support to not only keep your server pings as low as possible but to have in place a reliable anti-cheat system to protect the community at launch. A promising investment as other projects currently in development at Riot Games will certainly benefit, especially the fighting game title still not fully unveiled to the public.

Riot Games didn’t go into more detail about Valorant but we can expect a closed beta in the near future.

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