Valorant (XS) - Review

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If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery then Riot Games is the greatest flatterer in today’s industry.  And it's hard to blame that crew with such a tantalizing combination: "what if we meld the shooting mechanics of Counter-Strike with the hero abilities and personality of Overwatch?"  Enter Valorant: the prominent eSports first-person shooter on PC that's finally jumped to current-gen consoles.  In a year packed to the gills with hero games of all stripes, does it stand out from the crowd?

If looking strictly at weapon roster or flashy abilities, that answer would be "no."  However, that disregards the thing it's truly testing: the player’s intuition.  Keeping your head on a swivel, trying to echo-locate an opponent after they walk too fast, and more tactics have been ingrained into seasoned shooter fans since before Valve's multiplayer series joined the scene.  But there is an art to successfully emulating the giants whose shoulders you stand upon.  It's that dash of individuality with the familiar: two teams of five, three lanes, one team attacking to plant the bomb (or 'Spike' in this case) and the other team defending.  Each round begins with a buying phase, enabling purchases of any weapon or ability afforded with currency – acquired through round refreshes, team wins, and kills.  Each character also has an unlocked signature power from the start, some of which are rechargeable, like Sage's healing orb. 

It's true that there's a mix and match of blatant stereotypes and more nuanced personalities.  Who could predict seeing a mystical healing Asian lady or the rowdy American's varied ordinance abilities?  Looking past that, you'll eventually pick up how these disparate abilities create an interlocking emphasis on angles, flanks, and so forth.  While the designated role names of Duelist (attack/rush), Controller (camouflage), Initiator (intel), and Sentinel (defense) sound arcane at first glance, experimenting with each one's abilities reveals how they're really in service to Valorant's tight gunplay.  With the exception of a rare ultimate or character (e.g. Raze), incorrectly treating abilities as a means to free kills versus a secondary spotting tool will lead to imprudent decisions.  Thinking several steps ahead about which sightlines to smoke out or which angles to push could be what decides the round.

Fortunately, that emphasis on gunplay is bolstered by rock-solid mechanics.  As a notable split from ADS-focused titles – i.e. Rainbow Six: Siege, Call of Duty, and more, Valorant's design ethos being shared with Counter-Strike makes recoil virtually the same whether scoped or un-scoped.  Accuracy relies more on if you're moving and/or desperately spraying bullets.  The sniper UI is a perfect representation of this: you're only guaranteed pinpoint accuracy after a little red LED lights up when scoped in; without it, the shot will go sailing several degrees off-target.  Also like its spiritual predecessor, getting shot anywhere temporarily restricts movement akin to crawling through molasses.  There's usually a chance to escape back behind cover, but likely at a tremendous cost to your limited health pool.

That tension of a low time-to-kill (TTK) rate compliments Riot's map design too.  The same 'ole song and dance of a right, middle, and left lane (plus some secondary arteries) remains a lynchpin in multiplayer shooters because it works so well.  When you think about elevation, scoping out a lane by threading the needle, and potential ambush spots, there's practically an exact science on how to place everything and what character's kit goes best with advancing or defending the right spot.  The enemy could have a Gekko who throws Dizzy around a corner, hears two subsequent ink splatter hits, and quickly swings to headshot two stunned enemies; somewhere else, Gridlock could drop a chain of three smokes in a line in order for a teammate to stealthily plant deep into a site.

The importance of tactical foresight also extends to the buy phase.  Even in the first attack or defend round – pistols/stump shotgun only and 1000 max credits – you're weighing the cost/benefit analysis of sticking with a weaker weapon for powers and light armor or going for broke with a magnum.  A swift death doesn't only mean a loss of one body on the field; it's also the loss of your purchased materiel laying in the open for an enemy to take and carry over into the next round (and beyond if they avoid dying).  Since teammates can purchase weapons for each other, a parsimonious attitude to your own kit is a viable tactic in order to save credits for teammates on a potential hot streak.  There are two fights happening simultaneously: one testing your enemy's combative ability and the other their financial security across each round.

These dynamics have been here since before Riot's own inception.  The emphasis is – once again – on successful emulation.  It doesn't take long to see plans within plans, so to speak.  Your intuitive sense of where the attacking/defending enemy team will try to leverage their numbers, which weapons they tend to favor, and how their abilities coalesce will constantly be tested.  Attitudes towards particular alcoves or flanking routes will be less daunting as you're trained to keep a sharp ear and intentionally use abilities.

Although most map and character designs are technically sound, the tradeoff is a diminished personality.  Unless willing to pony up some real-life money (more on that soon), the modest roster of pistols, SMGs, shotguns, rifles, snipers, and knife have a matte black outer shell – emulating a military-style aesthetic.  Its more grounded approach to weaponry is contrasted with a softer look for characters and the environment, which admittedly look insipid compared to its other inspiration.  Granted, the expectations for vastly different character silhouettes like Overwatch wouldn't make as much sense given the design's necessity of near-identical hitboxes; however, the aforementioned cultural stereotype templates for most operators didn't have to be so plain either.


Riot's somewhat staid approach also applies to what are – admittedly – some quiet maps.  Even a more tactically focused title like Siege might have secondary audio in the background, such as breakable radios softly playing on specific maps.  Here, there's little sound aside from a character's quippy lines, someone's thwomping footsteps when walking too fast, gun rattles, short horn blasts for each kill, character ability sound queues, and the beeping of a planted Spike.  Most of these are sensible, but roughly half of all weapons don't carry as much oomph! as they should.  Overall though, most of its audio austerity makes sense: putting you in a noise-cancelling arena to echo-locate someone's general whereabouts and/or listen for what special tricks they're using fits this design ideal.

That principle works relatively well across the available maps.  Modes are a different story, as neither Deathmatch nor Team Deathmatch can replicate the tactical intensity of its various Search & Destroy options: Swiftplay (best of 9), Unrated (best of 24/OT), or Competitive (best of 24/OT).  They're certainly serviceable alternatives for low-key shooting fun with respawns, but can't capture the importance of holding down Bind's bathhouse corridor or Split's smart elevation shifts.  Out of the 7-8 maps I've played in rotation, the only true flop is Icebox.  I've heard horror stories about Breeze being downright terrible with its sightlines, rotations, and so on, but – fortunately – there's been no sign of it since launching on console.


With its modest assortment of maps, along with now 25 unique heroes (including newly-added Vyse), Valorant boasts enough content for a free-to-play shooter.  The countervailing forces to its $0 entry fee are, of course, seasonal Battle Passes and hefty micro-transactions.  I'd only known Riot's putative ability to distill gaming crack-cocaine from a distance, but it's something else seeing it for yourself.  You see, it's not merely that the gameplay is addictive, but also the "purchasable personality" alongside it.  There's something to the flash of the better-looking weapons, alongside final kill animations, unique sound effects, and more that make them more tempting.  But then you get annoyed seeing one weapon skin cost the equivalent of an indie game, a Battle Pass that doesn’t give any Valorant Credits to renew for the next one (the GaaS standard), and three separate currencies.  This makes Halo Infinite's pricing structure look like a charity by comparison. 

While the exorbitant pricing models – even for free-to-play shooter standards – are a tough pill to swallow, Valorant can be tough to put down.  The well-weathered gamer can easily spot its debt to Counter-Strike and Overwatch, akin to Family Guy's Invention of Reese's skit, but that shouldn't dismiss how those mechanical & aesthetic philosophies succinctly fuse together through Riot's own due diligence.  Said combination does come with certain hang-ups that make me question whether it's more a highly addictive shooter versus a great one, but it speaks favorably that it's always worth putting up with some obnoxious lobbies or occasional teammate disconnects.  As the saying almost goes: it's more than the sum of its plagiarized parts.

Contractor by trade and writer by hobby, Lee's obnoxious criticisms have found a way to be featured across several gaming sites: N4G, VGChartz, Gaming Nexus, DarkStation, and TechRaptor! He started gaming in the mid-90s and has had the privilege in playing many games across a plethora of platforms. Reader warning: each click given to his articles only helps to inflate his Texas-sized ego. Proceed with caution.

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