Valorant, the new free-to-play first-person tactical shooter from League of Legends developer Riot Games, will be entering closed beta next week, ahead of its launch on PC this summer.
Originally announced under the name Project A as part of Riot’s tenth anniversary celebrations last year, Valorant is a character-based shooter, with a focus on tactical play, inspired by the likes of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Crossfire, and, yes, Overwatch.
It’s a five-versus-five affair – each playable Agent having their own distinct abilities – in which the attacking team attempts to plant a bomb (the “Spike”) behind enemy lines. The defending team, meanwhile, must attempt defuse it or simply last the course of a round in order to win.
The Round // Gameplay Preview – VALORANT Watch on YouTube
Eurogamer’s Chris Tapsell took an extensive look at Valorant earlier this year, finding its gunplay extremely promising, even if the overall package lacked a distinctive character.
“If you do get a good team, or just a good group of pals to play it with, I found there was a remarkable thrill to most of the rounds I played,” he wrote, “Games frequently built to a natural climax of tension, and some higher-level plays…can be incredibly satisfying.”