Valorant, published by Riot Games. First-person shooter. Free to play; optional in-game purchases. https://playvalorant.com/en-us/

If you’re looking for a first-person shooter with lots of action and that’s relatively cheap to play, take aim at Valorant.

Valorant is a free-to-play first-person shooter released by Riot Games, which also produced the popular game League of Legends. It officially came out on June 2, 2020. Riot hasn’t released any figures on how many people are playing now.

Valorant is a free-to-play game without much storyline but with lots of action.

The game is play-oriented, with no specific storyline or quests for players to follow. However, Valorant has many different aspects, from the diverse array of characters to the different game modes within.

Game modes include Unrated [normal], Comp [competitive, ranked game], Spike Rush, and Deathmatch. It is important to note that three out of four game modes are team-based and you must cooperate with your team if you plan on winning.

Deathmatch is a single-player game mode, where your goal is to be the first player to kill 40 opponents within a 10-minute time frame. The game has a total of 10 players.

Unrated and Comp are basically the same except Unrated is more casual than Comp. Both average around 30 to 50 minutes. Spike Rush is faster than the other modes, averaging around five to 15 minutes per game.

The game puts you in a match with other players when you queue to play. You can create your own team with your friends or you’ll get matched with random people, (no bots, usually). It will also always be a five versus five unless someone disconnects.

In an Unrated, Comp, or Spike Rush session, there are two sides to a match. Defenders need to prevent the opposing team from successfully planting and blowing up a bomb. Attackers need to get on site to plant the bomb and protect it until it blows.

Halfway through the match — 12 rounds for Unrated and Comp, three for Spike Rush — the teams will switch sides, so if you started the game defending, you’ll switch to attacking.

In the game, there are currently five maps. Each map has specific areas where attackers can plant the bomb on site; each map has two to three sites to plant on.

When you play five Comp games at the beginning of an act, you will receive a rank. Your rank will place you against players of a similar skill level when you queue to play. The more Comp games you win, the more likely you’ll rise to a higher rank.

Valorant has three segments (“acts”); these acts last two months each during which you can earn more experience and extra rewards. Acts are meant to reset ranks so you can get placed again within a more fitting one.

The three acts add up to one episode, which is just something the game does to split the acts in groups of three.

In actual gameplay, you use guns to kill enemies and fulfill the objective according to your side. Alongside using guns, characters can use their skills to aid them in all modes but Deathmatch.

The game has 14 characters to choose from: five free-to-play when you first start, the rest you need to play games to earn. They all have their own skill sets.

“Some characters specialize in different categories,” said Jackson Chang, a local longtime Valorant player. By categories, he means roles the characters are assigned according to their playstyle.

There are four roles; Sentinels, Controllers, Initiators, and Duelists.

Sentinels will usually have skills like a heal or things to make it easier for their team to defend. Sage is a healer who can create a wall and cast orbs on the ground to slow enemies. Cypher is another sentinel who casts trip wires and caged triggers to locate where the enemy is coming from.

Controllers are characters who have abilities to make sites safer with smokes that block vision. Omen, Viper and Brimstone all have an ability to put down “bubbles” of smoke to obscure the vision of enemies when they enter an area; Omen has 2, Viper has 1, Brimstone has 3.

Initiators use their abilities to gain information about the enemy team. Breach has blinds that can detect where an enemy is by “concussing” them. Sova has a recon dart that reveals the area to show if anyone is there. Skye uses her wolf friend to run onto site and scope it out before the team pushes.

Duelists are characters that will rush onto site, their skills aid them in being able to move in front and faster than the rest of the team. Most of these characters have skills that blind the enemy which are used to move onto site without being seen.

Valorant has five duelists, Jett, Reyna, Raze, Phoenix, and a recently released character, Yoru.

“Yoru is a more unique duelist able to teleport when in a dire situation, also equipped with blinds and decoys to confuse and blind the enemy,” Chang said.

“Yoru’s skill set is made around getting behind enemy lines so it’s completely different from others’ skills and designs,” said James Choi, a gamer attending the University of Washington. “His teleport is also interesting because if placed right, you can instantly move across the map.”

Mercer Island High School and avid Valorant player Emma Wu agreed that the teleports were intriguing. “Really, no other character can do that,” she said.

“Yoru’s fake steps can be utilized in many ways. They can be used to either give the impression that you are running away, or charging into a fight,” college student Yunseok Lee said.

“Yoru’s ultimate [where he travels to a different dimension] has limited vision, but can find out the enemies’ positions and mess up their positioning and execution,” he said.

Lee also said that although Yoru’s skills are pretty neat, once opponents get the hang of them, he’s easy to counteract.

Local experienced gamer Nathan Yang also wanted to point out that although Yoru is a duelist, he’s not like the others.

“His playstyle is just to scout things out and get picks [kills], he’s good for engagements, not great when in a tough situation.”

There also seems to be some lore around Yoru and one of the maps in the game, the Icebox, but Yang said, “it’s just an easter egg.”

On the contrary, Choi said he thinks that because of the connection, Yoru should get a parka so he doesn’t get cold in the Icebox.

Cindy Tran writes for the Thunderword.