The unlockable agents don’t seem any more powerful than the default characters too, although I have seen signs of an unbalanced roster. Select agents have to be unlocked for competitive use, but this simply requires you to play multiple rounds rather than being forced to pay real-world cash. Most of your abilities need to be replenished with in-game credits too, so if you keep spamming an expensive move, you probably won’t be able to afford armour or weapons beyond a basic pistol in later rounds.
But while the likes of vision-blocking whirlwinds and enemy-tagging security cameras can certainly give you an edge in fights, they’re rarely powerful enough to make up for poor aiming. There are already 11 so-called agents to choose from, each flaunting varied and enjoyable special moves. Controls feel pinpoint accurate too, so you’ve only got yourself to blame if you lose a one-on-one encounter.Īnd then we have the character classes, ranging from the fire-ball tossing Phoenix who can summon walls of flames to the battlefield, to the swift-footed Jett who can propel herself into the air and hurl deadly throwing knives. And while sniper rifles can kill from range, the labyrinth-esque setup of every map means you can never be sure whether an enemy will flank you from behind.Įvery gun feels great to use, with crunchy sprays of bullets feeling incredibly satisfying when knocking down opponents. Shotguns may allow players to be less precise in their aiming, but they prove ineffective in long, twisting alleys. No gun feels drastically over powered, each featuring its own strengths and weaknesses.
There’s a huge arsenal of weapons to pick from, including pistols, shotguns, SMGs, assault rifles and snipers. This means you’ll have to decide how evenly you should spread your spending across the 24 rounds, with item management proving an important consideration. You’ll earn more credits in each round, but death will wipe out all of your gear. This can prove very frustrating for those lacking accurate and speedy responses, but anyone relishing an intense challenge will find it here in spades.īefore each round, players are allowed a brief window to purchase guns with in-game credits. While games such as Fortnite and Apex Legends allow low-skilled players a bit of leeway if they amass a collection of high-spec gear, Valorant is far more ruthless. Well-placed headshots can down foes instantly, even if they’re wearing heavy armour. There are no loot crates or random in-game events here to even the odds, with weapon accuracy being the single most important skill.
But by integrating it into such an intense first-person shooter where precision gunplay and tactical consideration rules the roost, Valorant ends up feeling uniquely appealing.Ĭreated by Riot Games – the same studio behind League of Legends – it’s blatantly obvious that Valorant has been designed to appeal to the eSports crowd. With Overwatch and Apex Legends previously reaping the rewards from such an approach, the character class system is by no means exclusive to Valorant. Integrating various zany power-ups into such a classic shooter formula creates a seemingly endless number of possibilities in nail-biting tactical firefights. Valorant is a new free-to-play tactical shooter, taking the pinpoint gunplay and claustrophobic maps from Counter-Strike and layering on top an Overwatch-style character class system for oodles of charm and replayability.