Riot unveils Valorant, 5v5 free-to-play shooter coming this year

Riot Games has released a new gameplay video for their previously untitled competitive online first-person shooter. Now, we know it is called Valorant, and we also get to see the game in action in a preview video. The game is slated to come out this summer and will be a free-to-play title. Watch the game in action below!

Last fall, Riot Games unveiled the company’s massive ambitions to create brand-new games set in the vast universe of League of Legends. Riot has struck figurative gold with LOL which has established itself as a powerhouse in the competitive online genre. But the mix of deep gameplay mechanics and overwhelming complexity is not accessible to many gamers. Many also are simply not interested in strategic/tactical games. Period.

That’s where Valorant – among others – comes into play. Riot Games plans to expand its huge treasure trove of ideas found in League of Legends and transform it into a wide range of genres and platforms. Among those is a mobile spin-off from LOL, a single-player action-adventure experience and Project A. Later has now received its proper name with Valorant.

Even when Riot Games first teased the shooter last fall, the comparisons to genre giants Overwatch and Counter-Strike were clearly obvious. There’s nothing wrong with taking inspiration as long as there are enough fresh and unique aspects to it. Today’s early gameplay preview showcases a short snippet from a match between developers, and what’s on offer is definitely promising.

The deliberate and tactical aspects from CS:GO can be seen, just as the exotic “skills”. The colorful visual style also helps differentiate Valorant from its competitors. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait much longer to play the 5v5 competitive shooter ourselves, as Riot has shared that the game will be available sometime this summer. Even better, it’ll be free-to-play and with LOL’s very user-friendly approach to F2P, we are hopeful that Valorant will also be one of the better examples in the genre.