Valorant is a team-based first-person tactical shooter game developed by Riot Games. Even though the game started development in 2014, it was only released in 2020.
Set in the new future, players play as an agent that each have unique abilities and can utilise a variety of weapons to try and defeat their opponents in a variety of gamemodes.

Game Demo

Lens 9: Elemental Tetrad

MECHANICS
As a tactical shooter, Valorant, at its core, is a game about working together with your teammates to try accomplish a specific objective or to defeat your opponents. Of course, being a shooter game, players are rewarded for precise and accurate mouse movements to aim and win gunfights. In addition, players can use their variety of abilities, as well as their knowledge of maps or understanding of different visual or sound cues to assist them in winning gunfights or achieving their objectives. The game also has an economy system, where players earn money from winning rounds or achieving certain results, such as defeating an enemy. Players then use this money before each round begins to purchase their weapons and utility for the next round.

AESTHETICS
The aesthetics of the game aren’t anything special. In fact, for a game released as recent as 2020, the graphics seem low quality. This is done on purpose however, as the developer intended for the game to be playable on any PC, no matter the specifications. Furthermore, as a competitive shooter, players need to be able to discern their environments and the location of other players as quickly as possible, something which high quality graphics could actually be detrimental for.

STORY
The game does not have much in terms of story apart from a couple of videos released every few months. This is to be expected however, as the bulk of the game is about its gameplay and competing with other players.

TECHNOLOGY
The developer, Riot Games, chose to develop the game on Unreal Engine 4, as it allowed them to focus more on gameplay and optimization. As I mentioned earlier, this was also done to lower the performance barrier and allow as many people as possible to play the game without worrying about hardware requirements.

Lens 34: Skill
Being a tactical game, Valorant requires many skills from players, which they can continuously develop and improve at the more they play. Things like being able to read the enemy’s intentions based on the information you have at any moment, using your abilities in the most efficient way, controlling the information you’re giving the enemy to work with and of course, the most important skill in a shooter, aiming. What I enjoy the most is that wins and losses are determined by how good a player is at any of this and the feeling that you are able to constantly improve as you play the game. Of course, this also means that the higher skilled player would win more often than not but this is made less of an issue with a matchmaking system to ensure that players in every game are at approximately the same skill level.

Lens 27: Time
In every match of Valorant, each team competes to be the first to win 13 rounds. Furthermore, each round lasts for only 100 seconds, which makes the game a fast-paced experience. This forces players to make decisions quickly , which in my opinion, makes the game more fun. It also prevents players from being dead for long periods of time or from being devoid of action for a long time. This ensures that the game remains engaging and not boring.

Lens 6: Problem Solving
Due to the fast paced nature and relative complexity of the game, a player would have many different aspects to consider at any moment, such as their time remaining, what resources they have to work with and information regarding their enemies, such as their last known position and the tools they have. They would then have to come up with a plan of action that they think would lead to them winning the round. This particular element of the game allows me to always feel engaged and invested while I’m playing, which in turn makes it feel enjoyable to me. Furthermore, there is also an economy in the game, where players can buy their utility and weapons for each round. This means players have to decide on the best way to spend their limited amount of money each round to maximise their chances of winning, as well as the number of rounds they win.

Lens 96: Friendship
As a team-based game, Valorant requires players to work together and to communicate to improve their chances of winning. Due to its fast paced nature, most players choose to communicate using the in-game voice chat as it is faster than typing. They can then use this to share information so that they can all make better individual or team based decisions. Valorant also allows players to add each other to a friends lists and allows them to queue up together, up to 5 players in a group. This means that players can choose to go into the next match with people they work well with or with their friends.

Conclusion
The analysis of this game has allowed me to see exactly what makes this game so enjoyable for me and why this game has been as successful as it has been up till now.