On June 2 at 14 CEST (5 am PDT), Valorant was officially released in the Americas. That means the first season called Ignition is now live! In Europe, it was released seven hours earlier. Now everyone can download and play Valorant free.
Valorant is a free-to-play multiplayer first-person shooter developed by Riot Games that was famous with their MOBA game League of Legends. This game looks like a mixture of CS:GO and Overwatch. The primary mode of Valorant is a classic Counter-Strike like five versus five clash. The attacking team needs to place the bomb on one of the sites while the defending team needs to prevent it or defuse the bomb if this happens. This mode also features an economy system, buying of weapons and equipment that are common for CS:GO gameplay. At the same time, every player controls agents with unique abilities that can remind of Overwatch or Team Fortress.
It is worth mentioning that Valorant was developed not only by team who worked on League of Legends but also by former professional player and map designer of CS:GO Salvatore Garozzo, art and character designer for Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 Moby Frankie and others.
The closed beta test of Valorant started on April 7. Riot Games proved themselves as marketing masters. They gave codes for beta access on Twitch. Therefore, Valorant was the top category on Twitch for two months. Valorant streamers were trying to be online for the longest time possible and then turned on their streams’ replays not to lose an audience.
With the official release, the developers reworked user interface, rebalanced agent’s abilities, and added Spike Rush as the casual mode. Riot Games also announced that they are going to add surrender option as they did in League of Legends.
