Valorant - 7
It’s hard to have originality when making a tactical shooter. The genre has been largely defined by Valve’s Counter Strike series for well over a decade meaning that any differentiating factors will be subject to immediate comparison to a game with millions of die-hard regular active players. Nevertheless, Riot Games’ Valorant does succeed in shaking some of the game design norms within this well-defined space and carves a unique path for itself.
Scores:
Originality: 7
Gameplay: 6
Story: 6
Audio: 8
Art & UI Design: 8
Total Score: 7 /10
ORIGINALITY
Valorant succeeds in being the tactical shooter that the player wants it to be. Player’s can adopt a more traditional playstyle opting for agents such as Jett or Chamber where gunplay is a significant focus. This will certainly be more comfortable for those used to tactical shooters such as CS: GO. However, for those more willing to attempt the more hybrid gameplay of this newer take on the genre, agent’s such as Killjoy and Sage offer an interesting twist by utilising map-changing walls, or sentry-guns that can help to protect bombsites. This added level on complexity raises the skill ceiling as player’s need not only have fast-reaction and angle awareness, but also must be acutely aware of every character’s unique abilities and how to negate them.
Originality is achieved through unique agents.
GAMEPLAY
The underlying formula for gameplay within Valorant will be familiar to any fan of the tactical shooter genre. Two teams of five players vie for control over two or three bombsites on uniquely designed maps. One team, the attackers, must plant a bomb and destroy a bombsite, while the other, the defenders, must prevent this bomb from going off. This is the core of Valorant’s offering taking both standard and competitive queues. Whilst the formula does not build at all on the core ideas of the genre, this is more than made up for by how the agent abilities change the nature of play and ultimately, it can be considered a classic case of ‘If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it’.
As touched on above, where the gameplay becomes interesting is when dealing with the agent’s abilities. Many agents feel genuinely powerful with abilities that have the ability to impact a round. Viper, Sova, Brimstone and others are capable of preventing defusals from safe places using skill-based ability line-ups to hold the site. Likewise, agents such as Reyna, Phoenix and Skye are capable of bursting on to site and blinding several enemies allowing a team to quickly take control of an area. Many of the abilities are genuinely quite fun, Raze for example, has an ultimate that fires a rocket across the map dealing huge splash damage and spraying colour all over the target area. As of the current build (11/12/21), no agents feel totally unviable nor do any feel completely broken, though some are more powerful than others – this good state of balance is typical of a Riot game though it was missing in the game’s earlier months.
Lastly, it’s important to discuss guns. The guns in the game have a familiar feel, many of them clearly inspired by those in similar games whether it be the ‘Operator’, which functions much like an ‘AWP’ from CS: GO or the slightly whackier ‘Judge’ which is akin to an auto-shotty from COD. This is commendable, as are the additional gun skins which can be purchased in-game allowing for monetisation in a healthy manner and avoid the ‘pay-to-win’ nature of many less popular FPS games.
STORY
Valorant is a purely multiplayer game. It has no single player or story mode (as yet), though as usual Riot do an incredible job of world-crafting around the game universe and allowing interest in that universe to grow organically and naturally. Numerous trailers that elaborate on the story of Valorant have been released with the high-quality VOs, audio and narrative that we’ve come to expect of Riot Games. However, where the narrative really comes through is in the unique look and feel of the agents and how they interact with one another. Sage pleading with Reyna at the beginning of a round that there are ‘better ways’ to live or Raze calling out to ‘Brimstonezinho’ add a genuine feeling of placement to each of the characters providing grounding to an otherwise simple world of a tactical shooter.
AUDIO
Audio is vital in the tactical shooter space. Footsteps and gun cocks are vital for locating your enemies. The sound of a grenade bouncing of a wall is key to knowing where to stand. The sound of a bullet firing is a unique way of identifying the gun that the opposing player might be using, allowing you to adjust your playstyle accordingly. The importance of audio cues is made even more important in Valorant by the vast number of unique player abilities. This is something that the development team have handled with significant attention to detail and largely succeeded in doing.
Every unique ability has its own sound effect and not even two agent’s smokes (for example, Brimstone and Viper) sound the same. Player ultimate abilities have genuine and suitable audio lines to warn opposing players and alert allies. Even the additional gun-skins, many of which can be purchased for additional money and come with unique ‘finisher’ animations have crisp and appropriate audio lines to go with them. This is one of the areas in which Valorant clearly excels beyond its contemporaries.
ART, MAP & UI DESIGN
For those taking the game from a more artistic standpoint, there is also plenty to enjoy about Valorant. There is a unique art style to the game which combines a slightly more cartoonish feel with real-world settings having many of the maps. For example, many of the maps feature familiar aesthetics, the oriental architecture present on Haven, or the clear Arabic architecture on Bind, but in the background, they feature world’s torn apart, chaos or floating islands.
The map design is also comfortably embedded in the gameplay and allows for skilful map-based combat by introducing new concepts to the tactical shooter genre such as the teleporters on Bind or the unique layout of CT and T spawns on Fracture.
The game also features player calling cards, an opportunity to display some of the concept art behind the game and give artists recognition for their contributions to the game. Another unique feature is how emphatic many of the paid gun skins feel with identifiable themes and animations behind many of them including those with an RPG feel (‘Elderflame’), a sci-fi feel (‘ion’), or even a purely whacky feel (‘Glitchpop’).
Lastly, the game has an identifiable and comfortable UI that follows a clear theme. Though this underwent some significant changes early into the games release these were welcome and made the UI more informative and comfortable to use – in particular, the overhaul to the in-game shops allows players to see damage information for each of the guns more comfortably. It may be nice to include the addition of a UI editor, similar to those used in the MOBA genre, for players to comfortably customize the UI as they see fit.
The game’s artbook is as incredible as the art in the game itself!
ROUND UP
Valorant is a comfortable classic within the tactical shooter space. Whilst it may have somewhat of an identity crisis suffering from constant comparison to Counter Strike, it does offer numerous unique additions to the genre, predominantly through it’s agents, that allow it to maintain differentiation. That said, I think the character, world, and map-design of Valorant would make for an interesting exploration and test of the traditional tactical shooter formula and would be interested to see the developers experiment with new game modes. In any case, I look forward to seeing what direction the developers take the game in future and to watching the esports scene grow organically as Riot is known for doing.