Riot Games, ten years of League of Legends played, that until a few months ago they would not have justified in any way that S aimed at indicating a lack of plurality. Suddenly the rumors about the making of a new title and then on its tenth birthday the announcement.
An announcement in a big way, which gave us teasers of a fighting game, a card game, a shooter, an animated series and two single players set in the Runeterra universe. A declaration of love to the entire videogame world and a renewed challenge to the competitive world. Because from that day the Californian giant would not only have been the emperor of the MOBA genre, but was challenging all its competitors in the open field.
After climbing the ladders of Teamfight Tactics and falling in love with the irresistible Trading Card Game: Runeterra, The time has come for us to try Valorant firsthand in its Closed Beta, the highly anticipated shooter that these days is monopolizing the attention of Twitch.tv viewers and igniting the hearts of Core Gamers passionate about the most traditional esports.
What is Valorant? An exquisitely competitive shooter, which collects the eSport tradition of the last decade, with the aim of becoming the new milestone of the genre. Denying the very close with Counter Strike: Global Offensive would be unfair to a parent who is still vigilant in the panorama and attributing absolute paternity would mean disavowing the brothers from whom Valorant and Riot Games have learned so much.
In the Valorant test in the Closed Beta version, Riot offers us a 5 VS 5 mode, played at the best of the 25 Rounds, where the teams will be called in turn to defend the Sites of one of the 3 available maps, and then switch roles with the opposing team and become the attackers. In this case the aim will be to place an explosive device (actually a mining extractor) in one of the available locations. Just like CS: GO.
To this solid mode, fundamental pillar of the competitive scene linked to shooters, we add the identity of the various characters, who thanks to their unique skills and maps beautifully aimed at interacting with the potential of the agents, add a depth unheard of in game mechanics. Unlike Overwatch, these skills cannot be used continuously, but must be purchased individually at the beginning of the various rounds and used wisely and moderately in the key moments of the game.
The economy system also has its roots in Counter Strike, where we will earn credits by winning rounds and making kills, while we will have to save and intentionally lose a few rounds to heal the team economy. To this basic mechanic is therefore added the purchase of your own unique abilities, which together with the supreme ability, available thanks to kills and deaths, will form the character's Kit.
Spend your credits wisely up to acquiring the ability to deploy a drone during the round or have access to summoning a wall at a strategic moment are the heart of team tactical gameplay, where the collaboration and strategic synergy between players and agents is the heart and glue of the experience proposed by Riot Games in Valorant in its Closed Beta. Gunplay is lethal, requires absolute precision, firmness, intuition and unforgiving.
Similarly to CS: GO it is almost impossible to fire on the move, where the spray from the shots of the weapon in use would inevitably miss the target, as well as the mechanics of the headshot is fundamental, vital to get the better of the opponent. The hit points are very few and you die in the blink of an eye, while the recoil control of the weapon requires excellent management of the spray and very short bursts.
The 10 agents playable during the Valorant test in the Closed Beta still in progress present such a variety of kits and moves available that they are able to embody the needs and preferences of the most heterogeneous audience with absolute precision: For example, Cypher is able to place cameras to control the movement of opponents and provide tactical information to his team, Viper is able to prepare insidious poisonous terrains in order to preclude entire portions of the map, while Sova is even able to fly a drone and flush out opponents.
Speaking of drones and cameras, the legacy of the tactical options proposed by Rainbow Six: Siege is fully collected and expressed in the consistency proposed by Valorant, where the options and interactions are multiple and multifaceted, but available in very limited quantities. To play Valorant, you need to manage your resources with skill, have surgical precision and a flexible and reactive strategy.
Naturally, the hearing game could not be missing, a fundamental component of strategic shooters. Moving around in Valorant is very noisy, so much so that it reveals its presence to opponents even beyond a wall of distance. It is therefore essential to walk very slowly when approaching the "hot" areas and be careful not to produce any noise, to reveal your presence and condemn your team to be encircled just one step.
The arsenal available to players is the same regardless of the character and offers a heterogeneous repertoire with firearms for all tastes: from the burst submachine gun, passing from the solid automatic rifle able to cover the most disparate ranges, to culminate with the inevitable and very expensive sniper rifle able to eliminate the target in a single shot. If we manage to survive in the current round, we will of course be able to keep our weapon for the next, perhaps dedicating our funds from the purchase of our agent's skills.
The aesthetics of Valorant winks at Cel Shading, strong with a peculiar and refined aesthetic. However, we are not convinced by the character design of the characters proposed, which are mostly anonymous or too little characterized to be interested. Although it is true that in a shooter aimed clearly at esports, the lore or the charm of the game world is in the background, we cannot understand how this aspect is apparently overlooked. We are talking about Riot Games, which through the sale of the cosmetic elements declined in the Free to Play offer has made its fortune.
Valorant is there, ready to dethrone the competition and settle on the podium of competitive shooters, thanks to the experience gained thanks to its predecessors and offers a very solid, ruthless and punitive design at least in this Closed Beta. The study of agents and maps will be vital to compete wisely and triumph, in an offer that from the gameplay side is amazing, apparently free from defects of any kind and very balanced. In the testing phase of Valorant in its Closed Beta we can assert that Riot Games has once again hit the target and we thrill to get our hands on the final product. Long live Valorant.
► Valorant is a Shooter-Tactical type game developed and published by Riot Games for PC, the video game was released on 02/06/2020
Valorant is a beautiful game that cannot be missing from your collection: we have decided to evaluate it with a 89%, if you are interested in learning more you can read the Valorant Review
