Lauren spends most of her time dead in League of Legends, or equally as dead in Valorant. Don’t ask her about Vampire: The Masquerade.
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I’ve never been there on ‘day one.’ Overwatch; League of Legends; World of Warcraft – all games that I’ve joined in on further down the line; communities I’ve assimilated into, not always been a part of. I wasn’t there when Wrath of the Lich King dropped, or when Twisted Fate had a global ultimate as a random ability in League. I wasn’t there when Overwatch won its Game Award, or when the Cataclysm sundered Azeroth. I was there, however, when Valorant released. For once in my life, I’m an ‘OG.’
Valorant was my first ever ‘assignment’ in the videogames industry. I spent day after day trawling through video clips for social media posts, keeping up with every patch note. But, moreover, it consumed my every waking moment – I’d finish up work, play Valorant. Write my university essay, play Valorant. In some ways it was just as addictive as League of Legends, but I knew, in my heart of hearts, I’d been there from the start. That’s a special type of feeling.
Watching Valorant grow from relative infancy to the seminal FPS game that it is today has been fascinating, especially in an ecosystem as fragile as our current one. I remember the good ol’ days of Valorant First Strike, the game’s first ever esports tournament. I remember when OG Jett could Updraft twice; when Viper had two Snake Bite grenades instead of one. I’ve had the pleasure of watching Valorant evolve into what it is today; a multiplayer powerhouse that, while not without its issues, has cemented itself as one of the most innovative, fast-paced shooters of all time.
But how did we get here?
Valorant, if you haven’t played it, is a mashup of Counter-Strike’s tactical, site-take-focused gameplay, melded with the hero shooter feel of Overwatch. You can purchase weapons from a set arsenal of guns, and choose your specific Agents, each of which have their own, unique abilities. Agents are split into four categories – the aggressive Duelists, space-managing Sentinels, site-taking Initiators, and zoning Controllers (think Smokers from CS). As a team of five, you either have to take down your foes and plant the Spike, or ward off the enemies from taking your site. It’s relatively simple – in theory.
You could argue that, on paper, Valorant isn’t anything new; as I said, it’s a medley of Overwatch and Counter-Strike. The key here is that it appeared at exactly the right time. 2020 was the relative calm before the CS2 and Overwatch 2 storm – neither game was in particular decline, but things were relatively quiet. Valorant – a new Riot game – burst onto the scene with a shiny new premise, slick visuals, and heavily competitive, easily ‘esportable’ gameplay. It picked its moment perfectly.
Despite the launch of Overwatch 2 – which, for many, failed to really achieve what it set out to – and Counter-Strike 2 later down the line, Valorant has endured. While Riot doesn’t share player statistics, getting into a match is quick, and the recent London Masters broke viewership records for being the game’s most-watched esports event to date, beating out Counter-Strike’s Cologne Major, which ran parallel to it. Where the likes of XDefiant, Concord, and others have failed, Valorant has stood – and continues to stand – on its own two feet. It’s impressive; particularly in a world where online multiplayer games feel like they’re quickly going out of fashion.
There’s reasons for that, though. First off, Valorant’s rollout of new content – be it new modes, maps, Agents, or, very occasionally, a new weapon – has remained consistent. From the original ten-Agent roster (11 counting Reyna), there are now 29 characters to choose from – that’s 18 new characters over the course of six years. Three Agents per year has worked well – it doesn’t oversaturate, and it gives Riot time to balance things out a bit. It’s enough to keep you excited and to bring you back for that next patch, but it’s not enough to swell the roster to the point of bloat.
It does mean, inevitably, that some mechanics have repeated themselves. There’s only so many ways you can make a grenade interesting, and there’s only so much you can do with smokes. Yet, despite the obvious limitations, each Agent still feels unique. Viper’s toxic clouds erode your health over time, eating away at you in the way that poison should. Skye’s hawk-inspired flashes are in keeping with her Earth-warrior theme, while Reyna’s eerie, life-sapping powers contrast perfectly against Clove’s fairy-esque sparkle. Riot’s Agents have personalities, that’s what draws me to them over CS2’s generic Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists. They’re all so different, even if their mechanics are, in some cases, the same.
I’d be remiss not to mention Valorant’s artstyle here as well. Riot knows how to art: it really is that simple. You can tell a League of Legends splash art from a mile away, and Valorant’s vibrant yet slick, almost comic book style is unlike anything else on the market. Not only does it look pretty, it’s a statement of intent: Valorant’s branding is crystal clear – it hits hard and fast, and it takes no names. Its artwork, and its gameplay more broadly, reflects that.
None of this matters, however, if the balance is off. One of the problems hero shooters and character-driven games consistently come up against is balancing. 2025 and 2026 were dominated by Neon, Valorant’s feisty Filipina Duelist, and I remember the nightmare that was release-day Chamber. Balancing is never easy, and in a live-service environment, it’ll never be perfect. But, overall, I think, aside from a few blips, Riot has managed to keep things pretty consistent.
Back at Masters London, I asked Lead Agent Designer Dan ‘penguin’ Hardison and Agents & Live Product Manager Tiffy ‘TiffyMunchsnax’ Tsay about having to deal with hundreds of minute character and weapon interactions that could, if combined, accidentally break things.
“We combat this problem by making sure each character has a carved out place in the ecosystem, so that when you’re learning things you can bunch them up into little categories or things that you can expect out of them,” Hardison tells me. “As long as we keep the rules understandable and players can learn them over time and learn the situations that characters are the most useful in, then they understand the whole toolkit of the game. That then helps us determine if a character is doing too much.”
That ties into minimizing player frustration, and while Hardison says that “there’s some expectation that frustration is going to be a normal part of the game,” he says that Riot’s focus is “adapting over time.” I’d argue that, generally, the team’s managed to do that – even if I’d liked Neon to take an arrow to the knee a little earlier than she did.
As the game itself has grown into its own world and ecosystem, however, so has its esports. I started out in this industry as a pure esports journalist, and I’ve been lucky enough to watch Valorant blossom into a true titan – one that, in many ways, feels secondary only to League of Legends. In an interview at Masters, Valorant Esports’ Head of Product Strategy, Bill Pan, says that esports “has always been at the core of what the game is supposed to be.” Divorcing Valorant from esports is impossible, then – and in many ways, that’s why I fell in love with it.
Competitive videogames have always been in my soul – I thrive on the pressure and the back-and-forth skirmishes. While League of Legends still offers those high-octane outplay moments, getting a headshot in Valorant and watching the comic book-style ‘bang’ never gets old. There’s a rush of adrenaline that’s sometimes missing from League; I can only get so excited about watching my ADC farm our lane, or sweeping the jungle for control wards. In Valorant, you can’t take your eye off of the ball for a second; there could be an invisible Yoru, or a Tejo missile coming from around the corner. That almost frantic feeling is something I crave.
I’ve never quite found a game that intertwines that esports-esque adrenaline junkiness with standard gameplay. I haven’t felt that hype with CS or Overwatch. It’s Valorant that’s always pulled me back. I’m not Paper Rex’s Jason ‘f0rsakeN’ Susanto, or Fnatic’s Jake ‘Boaster’ Howlett (I initially wrote SUMN FC, man am I old). But, Valorant makes me feel like I could be. That’s something special.
Valorant in 2026 has had a bit of a rocky ride. There’s been a slew of odd bugs, including Cypher cameras being able to shoot darts again, Omen smokes not functioning correctly, as well as Waylay and Neon hitting the bench a couple of times. It’s been challenging; at some points it’s felt like Riot’s lost its grip a little. But, even then, I can’t tear myself away.
Valorant is new school – an example of what a modern multiplayer game can be, and a reminder that we can actually produce top-tier online experiences despite what’s happened to the Highguards or the Concords of the world. We just have to commit to doing something different.
“People should play Valorant in 2026 because it’s a game you can truly spend hundreds of hours on, and we’re committed to that vision,” Hardison says. “Relative to other games in the industry, we are a long-term-oriented game studio – you look at League, it’s been supported for a long time. We plan to do the same thing for Valorant.”
Pan describes Valorant as being “born out of a project of passion;” one that “smashes together two different genres of games [tactical shooters and hero shooters] that have never overlapped. Can you create an awesome experience where you don’t lose either? The answer is very much yes. You can’t get both anywhere else – you can get one or the other; you can’t get both.
“You also get a robust world to experience, with lore and stories and culture; you don’t really get that in a lot of other games, unfortunately,” he continues. “The publisher develops a great game, then they sort of leave it there, and the fans come and build their own communities around the game, which is beautiful, but I think we care about building and fostering that community a bit more than most.”
“There are few games where you can get such high highs and low lows on the emotional spectrum, and play with your friends and learn such a deep skill that’s also fun.” Hardison says, prompting a nod from Tsay “We still have the same appetite for risk and innovation that we did five years ago – in fact, we probably have even more,” she says, and that, right there, is exciting, and exactly the mentality we need.
