After months of waiting, Riot Games has finally given the gaming world a first look at their debut FPS title, Valorant, including a complete list of the characters — and their abilities — that will ship with the game in Summer 2020.
There has been little known about Valorant before this, except for a handful of minor leaks detailing a healer character — who we now know as Sage — with abilities similar to rival title Overwatch’s Mercy, and a number of screenshots.
Now, alongside an alpha gameplay reveal, and a date tease for Summer 2020, Riot has lifted the lid on the characters that will inhabit it’s FPS title. According to Polygon, these character descriptions are direct from Riot themselves.
Each character, nicknamed an ‘agent’ in Valorant, has four abilities, similar to Riot’s League of Legends. Each agent has a Signature Ability, which can be used free every round, two they must buy, and one ultimate ability which is charged by kills.
Here are the eight agents, and their abilities, which are expected to ship with Valorant when it drops in Summer 2020:
Brimstone
Brimstone’s orbital arsenal ensures his squad always has the advantage. His ability to deliver utility precisely and safely make him the unmatched boots-on-the-ground commander.
- Incindiary: Launch an incendiary grenade that deploys a damaging field of fire.
- Stim Beacon: Target a nearby location to call in a Stim Beacon, giving all players near it Rapidfire.
- Signature Ability — Sky Smoke: Use your map to call in orbital deployment smokescreens that obscure vision. Click to set the locations, and confirm to launch.
- Ultimate — Orbital Strike: Use your map to target a location, launching a devastating orbital strike that pulses for high damage over several seconds.
Cypher
Cypher is a one-man surveillance network who keeps tabs on the enemy’s every move. No secret is safe. No maneuver goes unseen. Cypher is always watching.
- Free Ability — Trapwire: Place a stealthed tripwire between two walls. Triggering enemies are restrained and revealed for a short time. If the trap is not destroyed, it activates to daze the trapped victim. Can be picked up.
- Cyber Cage: Toss out a remote activation trap. Reactivate to create a cage that slows enemies who pass through it. Look at a trap and press USE to detonate it, or hold ACTIVATE to detonate all.
- Signature Ability — Spycam: Place a remote camera. After placing, reactivate to view the video feed. Left-click while in camera to fire a tracking dart. Recharges when picked up or killed.
- Ultimate — Neural Theft: Extract information from the corpse of an enemy, revealing the location of their living allies.
Jett
Jett’s agile and evasive fighting style lets her take risks no one else can. She runs circles around every skirmish, cutting enemies up before they even know what hit them.
- Cloudburst: Throw out a cloud of fog that obscures vision on impact. Hold down the ability button to bend the cloud’s in-flight trajectory.
- Updraft: After a brief wind up, propel yourself upwards.
- Signature Ability — Tailwind: Immediately dash a short distance in the direction you’re moving.
- Ultimate — Blade Storm: Arm yourself with several deadly throwing knives that deal moderate damage and kill on headshots. Scoring a kill restores all daggers. Left-click throws a single dagger. Right-click throws all remaining daggers in a short-ranged burst.
Omen
Omen hunts in the shadows. He renders enemies blind, teleports across the field, then lets paranoia take hold as foes scramble to uncover where it might strike next.
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- Paranoia: Send out an Ethereal shadow in a straight line, Nearsighting anyone it touches.
- Shadow Walk: After a delay, dematerialize and teleport a short distance.
- Signature Ability — Dark Cover: Cast out a stealthed ethereal orb that bursts into an obscuring sphere of shadow at its final location. Can be charged to increase distance.
- Ultimate — From the Shadows: Select anywhere on the map to teleport and reform. When arriving, appear as a Shade, that will go back to your original location if killed. Once the teleport is complete, become Incorporeal for a short time.
Phoenix
Phoenix’s star power shines through in his fighting style, igniting the battlefield with flash and flare. Whether he’s got backup or not, he’s rushing in to fight on his own terms.
- Hot Hands: Throw a fireball that explodes after a delay or upon impact with the ground. The fire zone damages enemies, and heals you.
- Blaze: – Cast out a flame wall that blocks vision and damages anyone passing through it. You can bend the wall when casting by turning while holding left-click.
- Signature Ability — Curveball: Cast a curving flare that bursts into brilliant light after a brief delay, temporarily blinding all looking at it. Left-click curves it left, right-click curves it right.
- Ultimate Ability — Run it Back: Mark your current location. If you die during this ability’s duration, or when this ability’s duration expires, you’ll be reborn at the marked location with full health.
Sage
Sage creates safety for herself and her team wherever she goes. Able to revive fallen friends and stave off forceful assaults, she provides a calm center to a hellish battlefield.
- Slow Orb: Cast out a radianite orb that breaks into a slowing field upon impact with the ground. All caught in the field are slowed, grounded, and make noise when moving.
- Barrier Orb: Conjure a large, solid wall. Right-click to rotate the wall before casting.
- Signature Ability — Healing Orb: Heal an ally or yourself to full health over a few seconds.
- Ultimate — Resurrection: Target a friendly corpse. After a short delay, revive them with full health.
Sova
Sova tracks, finds, and eliminates enemies with ruthless efficiency and precision. His custom bow and incredible scouting abilities ensure that even if you run, you cannot hide.
- Shock Bolt: Fire an explosive bolt that emits a damaging pulse of static energy upon impact.
- Owl Drone: Deploy a pilotable drone that can fire a dart that will Reveal enemies who are hit.
- Signature Ability — Recon Bolt: Fire a bolt that deploys a sonar emitter. The sonar pings tag nearby enemies, causing them to be revealed. Can be destroyed.
- Ultimate — Hunter’s Fury: Fire up to three deadly energy blasts that spear across the entire map. Each hit enemy takes heavy damage and is marked.
Viper
Viper deploys an array of poisonous chemical devices to control the battlefield and cripple the enemy’s vision. If the toxins don’t kill her prey, her mind games surely will.
- Snakebite: Fire a projectile that explodes into a pool of damaging acid.
- Poison Cloud: Throw a gas emitter that you can reactivate to create a poisonous smoke cloud at the cost of fuel. The emitter can be picked up and thrown again after a short cooldown.
- Signature Ability — Toxic Screen: Deploy a long line of gas emitters that you can reactivate to create a tall wall of toxic gas at the cost of fuel.
- Ultimate— Viper’s Pit: Emit a massive toxic cloud in a large area that lasts as long as Viper stays inside the cloud. Enemies inside the cloud are highlighted.
On top of these abilities, however, the newly-revealed Valorant will also have plenty of gunplay, Riot chief executive Nicolo Laurent explained. The official Valorant website describes the game “tactical shooter meets hypernatural powers.”
“In Project A [Valorant’s code name], shooting matters,” he said. “You don’t kill with abilities. Abilities create tactical opportunities to take the right show.”
Players eager to try Valorant, formerly known to the world as “Project A,” will be able to in Summer 2020, Riot confirmed in a March 2 teaser trailer.
