(gunshots)

- Oh, that's how you wanna play it!

- [Hammy] Hey, and welcome.

I'm Hammy, and Valorant has entered the world,

previously known as Project A,

Riot Games's 5V5 Team tactical shooter

has now been officially announced with a reveal,

namely a teaser as well as some brand new gameplay

and a whole deluge of articles from various press

who have got to play the game a little early.

In this video I'm going to talk

a little bit about what's announced,

but with a focus on the lore and the storytelling

and what we know about them so far,

as well as the cast of heroes or agents

that have been announced.

So if you enjoy this video,

throw a like and subscribe.

I'd love to hear what you think in the comments below,

and time codes in the description

if you want to skip to various agents or topics.

Okay, time to dive into the world of Valorant.

So firstly is a quick summary, what is Valorant.

Well we now know it's going to be a 5V5,

first to 12 or 24 round in a match, team tactical shooter.

It's attack versus defence

in a similar sense to Counterstrike

in that there are bomb defuse objectives,

one team tries to plant the bomb

the other tries to stop them.

Weapons and charges for two of your four

abilities that you have are bought with currency

that you earn round by round in a match.

Now if you're interested in the technicalities

I'll do a separate gameplay video,

throw a sub to see that.

Now whether you're a loyal sub of this channel,

thank you very much for being here,

or if you're brand new,

I love my lore story and world building behind video games

as much as I do playing them, if not more so.

Riot with League of Legends

and their lore and world building

over the last couple of years in particular

have been on a bit of a tear

ever since they ripped the League of Legends lore

to pieces a few years ago,

hired writers and started rebuilding it

from the ground up.

So I'm excited for Valorant in terms of

what Riot may bring.

Now, what do we know so far.

Well, in a world fighting for its existence,

a Valorant squad is put together to defend it.

A diverse cast of hyper-natural, battle-ready agents,

so agents are the people we are playing,

from across the world have come together

to respond to a larger existential threat.

With catastrophic, world-altering consequences

on the very line.

A tactical shooter with hyper-natural powers, then.

And this hyper-natural piece is used quite a lot

in various press articles and interviews

as well as some of Riot's official website material

to describe the sense of the abilities

of the Valorant cast of agents.

So with plenty of world-building lore

and story potential to come,

who are the characters that will be gracing the stage

of the world of Valorant?

Well, we have eight heroes so far,

so here's a quick run through of their looks

and some of their abilities

that have been shown off with gameplay footage.

Again, I'll do a separate video analysing

all of this in more detail if you want to have a look.

First up is Sage,

now we've seen a few leaks on Sage from a screenshot

over the last week showing her full ability kit.

Creating safety for her team and herself wherever she goes,

Sage is a support star character

who can use a revive and also slow down and manipulate

the new battlefield as well.

Sage's passive is a healing orb

that can heal a targeted ally or herself

to full health over a few seconds.

Her slowing orb makes a field upon hitting the ground

that catches everyone in it to slow them,

it grounds them meaning they can't jump up

and they also make noise.

Now apparently it's made of radionite,

maybe that's an aural material

that will be something to do with the Valorant storyline.

Sage's barrier orb makes a large, solid wall,

I think we've seen that before.

And you can rotate the wall before casting.

Now the ultimate ability is resurrection.

Target a friendly body,

after a short delay revive them with full health,

which we saw in the Valorant initial reveal trailer.

Next up we have Cypher,

hailing from Morocco they are apparently

a one man surveillance network,

keeping tabs on enemies,

very very vision-centric.

Their ability is Trap Wire.

You can make a trip wire on the ground,

this has been seen in footage.

Trigger enemies are slowed and restrained by it for a second

and revealed for a short period of time.

Cyber cage is a remote trap that can be reactivated

to create a cage that slows enemies who pass through it.

A single trap can be detonated by looking at it,

or you can hold a button to detonate multiple traps.

Spy Cam allows Cypher to place a remote camera

that you can then watch a video feed through,

and you can click while looking through the camera

to fire darts that track other players.

Finally an ultimate Neural Theft

lets you extract info from the corpse of an enemy,

showing you the location of all of their living teammates.

Seeing all of the enemy in one go who are still alive

on the map is very powerful indeed.

Next up, Brimstone,

a soldier commandery looking chap from the USA.

He has an orbital arsenal,

and can deliver utility as well as some support.

He's kind of a battlefield commander type.

Incendiary will let him fire an incendiary grenade

that does a damaging field of fire.

Stim Beacon is interesting,

you can put a stim beacon down

that gives all players near it rapid fire

but including the enemy team apparently.

So that has to be positioned carefully.

Sky Smoke is an ability that Bangalore players

from Apex Legends might recognise.

You can call in orbital deployment smoke screens

by clicking on the map and then confirming to launch them

to be able to smoke off areas.

Finally, orbital strike is an ultimate,

kind of like Gibraltar from Apex Legends.

Target a location, and barrage it with an orbital strike

that does high damage over several seconds,

interesting damage and team utility there from Brimstone.

Next up, Jett from Korea.

We have seen her in the initial

Project A announcement trailer last year,

and also in the name reveal trailer

she is being chased by Phoenix,

more on him later.

Very much a Carly-esque for you League fans,

Jett is very much an assassin, she's evasive.

Cloud Burst, her ability,

lets a cloud of fog be cast

that obscures vision when it hits.

Tailwind lets her dash a short distance

in the direction she is moving,

meaning that she can move quickly.

Updraft is shown off in several trailers,

it lets her raise up in the air

and then either fire with one of her other abilities

or simply navigate terrain.

Last but not least, a blade storm.

She gets several deadly throwing knives

that deal reasonable damage

but will kill on a headshot application.

If you actually get a kill,

it restores all of your daggers.

Left click will throw one,

and right click will throw all her daggers

in a short ranged burst.

You can imagine really, really skilled players

checking in kills together,

get a headshot, get all your daggers back.

Going to be a very very interesting assassin damage hero.

As I mentioned in the name reveal trailer,

we saw Jett being chased by Phoenix.

Now Phoenix hails from the UK,

but this cheeky chappy has a few fireballs up his sleeve.

Apparently his star power shines through

in his fighting style,

igniting the battlefield with flash and flare.

Phoenix's default or signature ability Curve ball

can throw a flare that will blind

the enemy team who look at it.

It can be curved left or right.

Hot Hands will throw a fireball

that either does damage after a delay,

or on impact with the ground.

And it will damage enemies and heal you

depending on if you're standing on it

or if an enemy is hit by it.

Blaze casts out a flame orb,

blocking vision and damaging

anyone who's passing through it.

As an ultimate, Phoenix has run it back.

You can mock your location,

and if you die during the ability being active

then you'll be reborn at the marked location

phoenix-style from the ashes with full health.

Probably familiar to Revenant players from Apex Legends.

Next up, Viper from the USA,

shown in some Warlock

and also in the initial Project A reveal trailer.

Viper uses a bunch of poisonous chemical devices

all driven by aerosols coated in toxin.

Crippling enemy vision, controlling the battlefield,

and causing mind games

and directing players in certain directions.

Her signature ability, Toxic Screen,

makes a long line of gas emitters

that you can reactivate

to create a big wall of toxic gas

at the cost of your fuel resource.

Snake Bite is a projectile that explodes

into a pool of very damaging acid on the floor

that damages if enemies run through it.

Poison Cloud throws a gas emitter

that can be reactivated to create

a big poisonous smoke cloud,

again at the cost of fuel as a resource.

It can be picked up and thrown, again if you wish.

Finally, Viper's Pit emits

a massive toxic cloud in a large area

that lasts as long as Viper stays inside the cloud,

and enemies inside the cloud

are highlighted and lose health.

If you're more of a hunter type,

take a look at Sova, hailing from Russia.

Like Cypher, a very very vision-enabling character,

Sova finds, tracks and eliminates enemies

with ruthless efficiency and precision.

His custom bow and scouting

mean that even if you can run, you can't necessarily hide.

Recon Bolt fires a bolt that deploys a sonar-emitter,

tagging nearby enemies and making them visible.

The bolt can be destroyed,

sounds familiar if you played Overwatch as well of course.

Next up Shock Bolt, fires an explosive bolt

that does a damaging pulse upon impact

as opposed to revealing people.

Sova's al drone which we see in the gameplay reveal

deploys a flyable drone that can fire darts

to reveal enemies who are hit by it,

further enabling vision of the enemy.

Finally, Hunted Fury fires

up to three deadly big blasts of energy

that go across the entire map,

hitting enemies for damage

and marking people when they are hit.

Last but by no means least, the mysterious Omen.

Teleporting across the battlefield,

rendering enemies blind and disorientated,