VALORANT IS A TEAM-BASED TACTICAL SHOOTER THAT TAKES PAGES OUT OF OVERWATCH AND CS: GO. ITS MAIN GAMEPLAY MODE IS SEARCH AND DESTROY; TWO OPPOSING TEAMS TAKE TURNS TRYING TO PLANT OR DE FUSE A BOMB IN A SPECIFIED ZONE.
It’s been over a month since Valorant’s release, so it’s pretty much still in its infancy. However, developer Riot Games intends for it to become a successful esports powerhouse. This raises several questions: what is the game about, what is it currently doing right (or wrong) and what Riot might need to do to ensure everything goes according to plan?
Conceptually, Valorant is a team-based tactical shooter that takes pages out of Overwatch and CS: GO. Its main gameplay mode is Search and Destroy; two opposing teams take turns trying to plant or defuse a bomb in a specified zone. If either team manages to accomplish their objective, they score a point, and the match continues until one faction reaches the preset number of points and wins the game.
If this format feels a tad too long-winded, there’s also the Spike Rush “fun” mode, which is basically a sped-up version of the basic S&D.
However, this time there are orbs scattered around the map for players to pick up, upon which they’ll receive small buffs for a period of time. A practice mode is also available if you’d like to test out abilities and guns in a pressure-free environment.
Of course, it’s not just about planting bombs— Riot has mentioned that more conventional modes such as Team Deathmatch and Free-for-all are being worked on—what sets Valorant apart from the other tactical shooters is the introduction of different Agents, each with their own unique skillset and Ultimate abilities.
Naturally, as we’ve seen from Overwatch, this means that there will be certain Agents that are just a little bit more useful than the others.
It didn’t take long for these “optimal picks”, such as Cypher and Sage, to appear and community sites like All Out Rioters were quick to put out tier lists in preparation for the game’s Ranked mode, which has since gone live.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE META
So, where has the game done well, and where does it seem lacking? For starters, the one thing that all of us agreed on was this: Valorant is definitely NOT an entry-level shooter.
Admittedly, it does feel a lot more forgiving than CS: GO, but the “experience wall” is definitely there, and it’s very tangible. We’d even go so far as to suggest an easier time coming to Valorant from CS: GO or R6S, as recoil patterns and tactical nuances here are much more in line with those games than say Call of Duty.
I’m an avid CoD player, and while I’m not exactly very good at shooters in general, I think I can hold my own. However, I had an absolutely horrendous time in Valorant at the beginning, because subtleties such as “crouch-walking” and “holding angles” are much more crucial here than they are in CoD.
Putting that aside, what do we mean when we say Valorant is easier than CS: GO? It boils down to one thing: relative accessibility. There are a few ways the game does this, but let’s just look at two of them for now. Firstly, the presence of each Agent’s unique abilities means new players often have a “get out of jail free” card which they can use to turn the tides of battle, and also helps to counteract the need for godlike aiming skills at the very beginning. After all, we all know how it feels to be a newbie going up against a bunch of veterans, so at least there’s some insurance from your abilities to ensure you at least have a fighting chance if you play your cards right.
Secondly, there’s also the much-appreciated “halfway mark” when you’re deploying the Spike. Basically, what this does is ensure that the attackers can “save” their progress. If you go past this threshold when deploying the Spike, and are interrupted just before you can complete it, you can come back later and start deploying again from the halfway mark, rather than from zero. In essence, it helps to keep the pressure on the defenders as the match progresses, rather than just letting them camp somewhere and taking their time to kill any attackers trying to re-deploy the Spike. In that sense, we find it’s a pretty good addition and makes it easier for folks who are new to the S&D format.
However, most of these points are double-edged swords, because while they might please the newbies, veterans might find that these additions take away from the experience that they’re looking for in Valorant. After all, it’s normal to bring your expectations from one game into another one, especially if they’re similar, and some of the opinions we gathered from experienced CS: GO players who hopped over tend to share the aforementioned sentiment. Take the introduction of unique Agents, for example.
On paper, they would appear to bring a breath of fresh air to the tactical shooter genre, but when you delve deeper, you realise that this will inadvertently bring Overwatch’s greatest competitive issue into Valorant: “staleness” due to the presence of optimal team compositions. Those familiar with the notorious GOAT era would know how boring and oppressive a “one team meta” can be. Perhaps such trends are only fully tangible when people are in Ranked mode, that is, having to fight the “same” team each match, but that’s what really matters here - if Riot intends to make Valorant successful in the esports sphere, it’ll have to deal with it sometime along the way.
SO, IS VALORANT WORTH INVESTING TIME IN?
As it stands, we would be more inclined to say no, at least for now, and the Twitch viewership for the game seems to reflect our outlook at the time of writing this piece. It’s been decreasing steadily over the past few weeks as people return to their old tactical shooter haunts or play other games entirely. The (unreasonably?) high accessibility bar is probably one of the bigger reasons for the trend, but it’s probably due in part to the fading novelty as well, in the sense that it currently doesn’t offer much beyond the various Agent abilities for people to toy with. Sure, it might have some good points in terms of quality of life improvements compared to other tactical shooters and a somewhat balanced meta, but those aren’t things that really jump out at you and say Valorant is a “must-play” right now.
Perhaps all it needs is a little more time to find its place in the tactical shooter community, and it’s up to Riot to make the most of this “grace period” that some players are willing to afford it.
