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Riot Games has announced that its new toony tactical-shooter Valorant will officially launch on June 2.
From the developer of League of Legends, Valorant is a turn on its heel to deliver “precise skill, high stakes, lethal gameplay, and clutch moments that reward creative gameplay styles.” There are ten Agents (so far) with their own individual abilities, dependent on their class of Controller, Duelist, Initiator, or Sentinel. The matches are attackers vs defenders, pitting two teams of five players against each other over the course of 24 rounds of combat held across a variety of maps.
Riot Games has also pledged to provide “dedicated 128-tick servers for all global players, for free; a custom-built netcode in pursuit of precise hit registration; server authoritative game architecture and proprietary anti-cheat prevention and detection from day one.” Its closed beta began to cultivate a Valorant community, and the game broke the “single-day hours watched in a single game category” record on Twitch.
The beta showed that no game is immune to problematic players, and female Valorant players stated that they are already suffering with sexist language from unpleasant teammates. Riot Games will support those who are being unfairly targeted in Valorant matches, and will focus on minimising harassment at no expense to the affected player. “We’re not going to ban someone just because they got passionate about winning or losing. But I also know that some experiences can go beyond enthusiasm; sometimes they extend into harassment. That’s what we’re not okay with,” said executive producer Anna Donlon.
Valorant will launch for PC on June 2.
