What Is Valorant? A Complete Breakdown for New Players

Riot Games is the developer and publisher of the free-to-play first-person tactical hero shooter, Valorant.The game’s development began in 2014, and in October 2019, a sneak peek under the codename Project A was released. On April 7, 2020, a closed beta test with restricted access got underway. On June 2, 2020, the product was released. Although it was not intended for cross-platform play between PC and console clients, support for the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 was added in June 2024, after it was first built exclusively for Windows. The Counter-Strike series serves as an inspiration for Valorant, which borrows certain elements from it, including the buy menu, spray patterns, and moving inaccurately. Valorant is a first-person tactical hero shooter set in the near future that requires a squad. One of the agents—characters based on many nations and cultures—that players can choose from is played by them. Players are paired with an offensive or defending team in the primary game mode; each team consists of five players. Agents are endowed with special abilities that all require charges, in addition to a special ultimate ability that can only be charged through objectives, kills, orbs, or deaths. Each player has one or more “signature ability” charges as well as a “classic” gun at the beginning of each round. In an in-game economy that distributes money according to the results of the previous round, any kills the player is accountable for and any objectives accomplished can be used to buy additional weapons and ability charges. There are several different types of weaponry in the game, including primary and secondary weapons such as assault rifles, shotguns, machine guns, submachine guns, and sniper rifles. The player must master the distinct firing patterns of both automatic and semi-automatic weapons in order to shoot targets with accuracy. There are now 24 agents available for selection.Upon creating an account, the user will receive five unlocked agents; the remaining agents must be unlocked by gathering Kingdom Credits, or in-game money. Playing games and finishing daily and weekly chores will earn you Kingdom Credits, which you can use to unlock additional agents and cosmetic items. However, new agents can only be acquired with Valorant Points (VP), through Agent Recruitment Events, or by having an active Xbox Game Pass membership linked to your account during the first 28 days of the game’s release. VP is an in-game currency that can only be acquired through real-money purchases. It can be used to buy more agents or cosmetic items.