Valorant

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–PUBLISHER: Riot Games | DEVELOPER: Riot Games –GENRE: Shooter | THEME: Fantasy –PLATFORM: Download | STATUS: Upcoming PC Summer 2020

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Valorant is Riot Games' new 5v5 hero shooter and the studio's ambitious take on the competitive FPS genre. With a focus on the tactical side of combat and boasting creativity as the player's greatest weapon, this is a game designed to level the playing field for every player in the world, addressing issues that plague competitive shooters since the dawn of the genre.

Riot Games is promising accurate, weighty, and significant shooting in Valorant, putting skill and tactics to the forefront of the matches. To achieve this ambitious goal, the devs are using state-of-the-art tech which includes 128-tick servers, the ability to deliver  at least 30 frames per second even for older PCs with over a decade of age, up to 144 FPS on modern gaming computers, and several datacenters for <35ms spread around the world. A Valorant beta test before release should give Riot enough data to fine-tune the infrastructure.

Tech aside, the Valorant characters are promised to be very diverse. Coming from different countries all over the world, these mix military and fantasy tropes to create a result that feels like a cross between CS:GO and Overwatch. Everyone brings guns to the fight including pistols, machine guns, and sniper rifles, but they also have unique powers to turn the tide of battle. Jett, who hails from South Korea, brings her set of knives into combat, for example.

Valorant is a free to play shooter that you can download for free and is supported by skins and cosmetic items. It was announced as a PC exclusive, but a console release in the future shouldn't be entirely ruled out. The Valorant release date is set for summer 2020, becoming the first title from Riot Games that bears no connection with League of Legends – Legends of Runeterra is a CCG set in the same universe of the acclaimed MOBA, and there's also a League of Legends fighting game in development.