Theresa Nieboer
What is so special about Valorant?
Though COVID-19 forced many people into lockdown, there were new game releases
that helped people through the gruesome two years. One game in particular is VALORANT.
Valorant is a first-person shooter by the company Riot Games. Riot Games is a popular game
company and has won plenty of awards. The game company is mostly known for its debut game,
League of Legends, which has gone on to become one of the most-played PC games in the
world. As one of the most popular games, League of Legends has the most viewed esport
tournaments. Just recently, League of Legends 2022 World Championship reached its highest
viewership with 5.11 million viewers. When Riot Games announced the production of their first
fps game, they promised to be different from the typical fps games, like Rainbow 6 Seige and
Call of Duty. They focused on player experience and fairness through all computers. Fans were
excited about the precise gunplay, beautiful maps, and new characters with their unique skills.
Valorant’s community continues to grow, even after COVID-19, due to its highly intense
gameplay, unique characters, and entertaining streamers.
Valorant’s game objective is very similar to Counter-Strike: Global Offense’s objective.
There are two teams, attackers and defenders, with five players in each team. The attackers’
objective is to plant the spike, which is a bomb, in the designated areas. The defenders’ objective
is to make sure the spike does not get planted in any of the designated areas. The defenders have
about 100 seconds to do so, but if they fail and the spike is planted, they have approximately 45
extra seconds to defuse the spike. The attackers win the round when the spike explodes or when
the enemy team is all dead. The defenders win the round when the timer runs out before the
bomb is planted, if they defuse the spike before it explodes, or when the enemy team is all dead
too. Timing is very important in this game. Planting spike takes 4 seconds, but if the 100-second
timer runs out before the plant, it is a win for the defenders. Defusing the spike takes 7 seconds,
if it explodes before the seven seconds, it is a win for the attackers. Defusing the spike is much
more difficult than planting the spike, since the timer, which is shown on the top, is replaced
with the image of the spike. It is harder to tell if the player has enough time to defuse the spike or
not. Many players rely on the spike’s beeping sounds or the spike’s visual appearance to figure
out if there is enough time or not. The spike’s explosion has a large radius and anyone inside that
radius, both attackers and defenders, loses their shield and gun. After 12 rounds, the teams
switch sides, so the attackers are now defenders and the defenders are now the attackers. The
game ends when a team hits 13 wins.
To keep the game more interesting, there are multiple maps to play on. By the end of
2023, there will be a total of 13 maps. Each map has two designated spike planting areas, except
for Haven and Lotus which have three designated areas. From a player’s point of view, a layout
of the whole map can be seen on the top left side. The layout highlights the designated areas and
lettered A through C for fast and easy communication between teammates. Each map has a
uniqueness to it. For example, the maps Ascent and Sunset have doors that can be closed with a
lever. Another example would be the map Bind which provides the players with teleporters. Each
year, two new maps get added to the game. Just recently, Riot Games announced map pool
rotations. With a new map launching every 6 months, players could become overwhelmed.
According to Joe “Pearl Hogbash” Lansford, Valorant’s map design lead, “Learning a new map
can be one of the toughest parts of a tac shooter. Going from “learned” to “mastered” is even
harder. Doing that on a whole bunch of maps is a steep learning curve. Not to mention all the
combinations of Agents and utility. It’s a lot!” The map pool leaves 7 of the maps for players to
play on, while the rest are removed from the game until the next rotation. The removed maps are
not in some file collecting dust. Riot Games actively updates these maps to make them more
balanced. Being balanced means that not one team has the advantage. Previously, there were
many complaints about the map Split being defender-sided because of all the angles. Split was
the first map taken off the roster, but when brought back into the rotation, it had fewer angles for
defenders and more corners for the attackers. Every removed map gets an update that Riot deems
necessary, no matter if it is as simple as removing a box or as complex as redesigning a
designated planting area. Only 10 out of the 13 maps used are in consideration for the pool
rotation. The other three maps are for the game mode deathmatch.
Five game modes follow the main plant/defuse objective: unrated, swiftplay, competitive,
replication, and spike rush. Unrated is the most popular game mode, since it follows the original
plant/defuse objective. Swiftplay is a mini version of Unrated. Instead of 13 rounds to win, only
5 winning rounds are needed to win the game. Unrated takes about 45 minutes to end, but
swiftplay only takes about 15 minutes. Swiftplay is popular for players who like short quick
games. Competitive is similar to unrated but with ranks. The ranks are iron, bronze, silver, gold,
platinum, diamond, ascendent, immortal, and radiant. Each rank has a mini rank from one
through 3, with 1 being the lowest. Valorant places players in ranks by how much damage is
done, assists, and deaths. After each game, the winning team earns points, RR, to move up the
rank, while the losing team loses RR moving them down a rank. How much RR is given by how
impactful a player was. To win a competitive match, the team has to win by two points at 13 or
after 13. When a comp game lasts longer than 25 rounds, it goes into overtime until players vote
for a draw or if a team has two points more. Valorant also provides unique game modes.
Replication is almost identical with swiftplay with the only expectation being that each team is
the same agent. Spikerush is also similar to swiftplay, but with powerups. The three maps are
used for deathmatch. Deathmatch is in almost all FPS games, but Valorant’s Deathmatch is very
different in comparison. Valorant has the typical solo deathmatch and team deathmatch but also
has fun deathmatches like Escalation and Snowball Fight. Escalation is a typical gun game,
where when a team commulates enough kills with one gun, it switches until they reach the knife.
Snowball Fight is a fast-paced deathmatch where players are put on skates and have to hit the
enemy with snowballs. With tons of game modes, there will always be one that someone would
love.
There are four roles that each agent is placed in. There are duelists, sentinels, controllers,
and initiators. Duelists are aggressive agents, with abilities that help get kills and win the first
engagement. Sentinels are defensive agents, with abilities to watch flank and block off areas.
Controllers are supportive agents with abilities to spilt areas off from danger. Initiators are
informative agents with abilities to find the enemy. As of right now, there are 23 agents with
unique skills. For example, Sage, a sentinel, has an ice wall to block enemies, a slow orb to slow
enemies, a healing orb to heal teammates, and an ultimate that revives dead teammates. No other
agent has the same set of skills, but there are similar ones. The agent Skye, an initiator, has a
healing ability as well, but instead of healing a singular teammate, she can heal teammates that
are in her vicinity. The rest of Skye’s abilities are to inform where enemies are, like her dog that
moves around to find other players, her bird that flashes players it sees, and her ultimate that
automatically finds the enemy. Every four months, a new agent is added to the game. This
always excites players to grind the game to be able to get the new agent quickly. Reyna, a
duelist, was the first announced agent after the beta. Reyna’s gameplay teaser excited many
people to launch the game at the release.
Valorant has piqued many steamers and professional gamer interests with its 128 tick
rate. In other FPS games, it is typical to have only allow for 20-64 tick rates for casual gaming.
Many companies refuse to allow casual gaming because it is too expensive. 128 tick rate is
usually reserved for professional tournaments. Valorant’s goal is fairness and a low tick rate
gives attackers an advantage. As Ethan Davison has stated in “Valorant’s Super-Fast Servers Are
Attracting Streamers and Pros in Droves,” “At that kind of speed, movement is much more
precise, and the number of nonregistered hits, or “no-regs” — those shots with which you swore
you hit your opponent — should decrease drastically. It will also reduce peeker’s advantage.” By
raising the tick rate, no matter how slow or fast a player's internet is they would share the same
experience. With a 128 tick rate in casual games, pros can practice more efficiently and
streamers and casual gamers can enjoy the game better. With many people eager to play a new
shooter game, Valorant reached 1.73 million Twitch viewers watching the beta release from
streamers. Valorant’s viewership nearly broke Riot’s other game, League of Legends, which had
1.74 million Twitch viewers. From ESPN’s “VALORANT Draws Near-Record 1.73 Million
Viewers on Twitch.”, Tyler Erzberger points out, “With its peak viewership of over 1.7 million,
VALORANT's beta day launch cleared almost every event in Twitch history, including the
Fortnite World Cup in 2019 (1.6 million).” Streamers are still playing Valorant 3 years later.
Streamers like, Pokimane, xQc, and Kaydae, play Valorant almost daily. Valorant isn’t only
popular in the West. While visiting my friend Momoka in Japan, she raved all about Valorant
though she never played it. In her own words, Momoka said, “It is the streamers that make the
game exciting to watch.”
The game is still going stronger even after the end of lockdown. Valorant is actively
being updated, making sure the game is filled with things to try out and having an equal
experience with players. Valorant just announced its Chinese release, and it opened more doors
to allow more people to play.
Works Cited
Davison, Ethan. “Valorant’s Super-Fast Servers Are Attracting Streamers and Pros in
Droves.” The Washington Post, 14 Apr. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/videogames/esports/2020/04/14/valorant-tick-rate-servers-pros-streamers/.
Erzberger, Tyler. “VALORANT Draws Near-Record 1.73 Million Viewers on Twitch.”
ESPN, ESPN Esports, 8 Apr. 2020,
www.espn.co.uk/esports/story/_/id/29011382/valorant-draws-record-173-millionviewers-twitch.
Lansford, Joe Pearl Hogbash. “VALORANT MAP POOL CHANGES.” Playvalorant, Riot Games,
16 June 2022, playvalorant.com/en-us/news/game-updates/valorant-map-pool-changes/.
Oloman, Jordan. “Valorant Review- Mind Games and Strategy Meet Competitive
Shooting.” The Guardian, 20 June 2020,
www.theguardian.com/games/2020/jun/20/valorant-review-riot-games-league-oflegends-shooter-strategy.