Valorant is a 2020 first-person tactical hero shooter video game developed and published by Riot Games.A free-to-play game, Valorant takes inspiration from the Counter-Strike series, borrowing several mechanics such as the buy menu, spray patterns, and inaccuracy while moving
Development started in 2014 and was teased under the codename Project A in 2019; the game was released on June 2, 2020 for Windows.
It was ported to the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 in June 2024, albeit without crossplay between PC and console clients.
valorant
GAME MODE
AGENTS AGENTS
There are a large variety of playable agents available in the game. Agents are divided into 4 roles: Duelists, Sentinels, Initiators, and Controllers. Each agent has a different role which indicates how the agent is usually played.
DUELISTS SENTINELS
Duelists are one of the four roles that agents are divided into in VALORANT.
Agents under this role have abilities that allow them to focus on being the first to enter sites and engage the enemy.
CONTROLLER INITIATORS
Controllers are one of the four roles that agents are divided into in VALORANT.
The abilities of agents under this role allow them to assist their teammates by cutting enemy vision, taking control of an area, and forcing enemies into choke points.
Sentinels are one of the four roles that agents are divided into in VALORANT.
The abilities of agents under this role focus on defensive play, with emphasis on supporting the rest of the team through providing intel, anchoring down sites, and preventing the enemy from flanking.
INITIATORS are one of the four roles that agents are divided into in VALORANT.
The abilities of agents under this role focus on initiating attacks on site, flushing enemies out of hiding spots and corners in order to assist the team when charging into battle.
MAPS MAPS
Standard play maps feature a spawn area for each team, barriers that limit accessible areas during the Buy Phase for Plant/Defuse game modes, and objective sites where the spike is to be planted. These maps are also for Deathmatch-class modes, such as Escalation and Deathmatch.
DETERMINING MAP SELECTION
VALORANT uses a deterministic map system in order to increase the variety of maps players will encounter and vastly reduce the possibility of playing on the same map multiple times in a row. Once 10 players have been selected for a match, the system looks at all maps those players have played over the last 5 maps for the mode they have queued into. Any maps that a player has played twice in the past 5 maps are removed, before the system then picks the least played map from those remaining. If all maps have been removed due to the “Twice Played” rule, then this restriction will be ignored and the least played out of all the maps will be picked instead
MAP ROTATIONS
Map rotations are used in Competitive, Premier and Deathmatch, keeping seven maps in the pool at once and disabling all other maps from appearing. Factors that can influence which maps are rotated out of the pool include player sentiment, time since release, planned updates, and the strategic variance of current and newly-released maps.
MAP COORDINATES
Each map in VALORANT has a real-life location, with its coordinates shown on the loading screen when entering a game on that map. The coordinates are listed as latitude and longitude using degrees, minutes, and seconds. The seconds values are shown as letters instead, with each letter representing a digit
ARSENALS WEAPONS
Agents can use many different variations of weapons, typically firearms, to cater to specific playstyles or metas. Weapons are separated into two main categories, Sidearms and Primary weapons. Sidearms consists of pistols, while primaries are further split into SMGs, shotguns, rifles, sniper rifles, and machine guns.
Guns have limited amounts of ammo but come with 3 magazine’s worth of that weapon’s ammo as reserves. Bullets deal different amounts of damage depending on the gun, the body part they hit, and the distance between the shooter and the target. Each gun deals a set amount of damage to an enemy’s body at its shortest range and then uses multipliers on this value to calculate the damage it will deal to the head and legs at close range and all body parts at further ranges. Resulting numbers with a decimal value are rounded down to the next integer value. Enemies hit by bullets will also be tagged with a 72.5% slow for a brief period. Shotgun pellets will only apply a 30% slow if they tag an enemy beyond 10 meters.
