Blogs
on April 17, 2026
"I made the request that said orgs should NOT stream V on day 1 because I didn't want to conflate business interests with friendly outreach. Especially for orgs with influencer/entertainment arms in addition to esports: what's to stop them from taking their allocated invites & flipping it to their content creators over interested pros? Hence the request: please hold off streaming if you were invited via our esports outreach, because the GOAL of said outreach was/is different from our online bootcamp outreach with FPS partners/content creators/folks we hope would be stewards of the community. I'll be honest @Nadeshot , you occupy a weird slot and unfortunately were forced to be in one camp of outreach despite being in both. Sor
Fortunately, critical clarification by Riot Games' Christopher Tom has contradicted the worst of Haag's assumptions. In a Twitter thread, Tom reiterated a statement made by Riot esports business strategist Kasra Jafroodi, who did confirm suspicions that Riot's goals was to " ensure all esport orgs around the world received access to the game at the same time " in order to avoid giving any team a " competitive advantage, " presumably in terms of mechanics as well as scouting. However, Tom's own statement best justifies Riot's delay order to streamers as it pertained to potential conflicts of interest, having s
In what amounts to a misunderstanding between Riot Games and its professional gaming partners, the controversy kicked off when 100 Thieves's Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag was told by Riot that he couldn't stream footage of Valorant on April 7. As cataloged by a Rod Breslau tweet, this appeared to be an effort on the developer's part to reduce the likelihood of teams like 100 Thieves gaining an unfair scouting advantage over those in regions where the beta releases later. Haag speculated that Riot's hand was forced by international League of Legends esports teams over the developer's long-perceived preference toward North American players, saying that he was " pissed " at Riot's request that he not stream until the following day, Apri
Viper's ultimate, and most useful ability, is called Viper's Pit and can be used to push a whole team on to a point with ease. Viper's Pit fills an entire room with a thick-toxic smoke that limits an enemy player's vision. It also deals decay damage to enemies who are caught inside the smoke. On top of that, enemies who enter the smoke are outlined in orange for Viper. This ability can be used to blind enemies and quickly place a bomb on to a point for a quick point r
In preparation for Valorant's summer 2020 release , Riot Games has slowly released information about the game and its characters. What players know about the game's world so far is that there are eight unique characters: Phoenix, Viper, Sova, Cypher, Brimstone, Sage, Omen, and Jett. Valorant updates|https://valorantcentralhub.com/ is set on Earth, which is assumed from the fact that each character, or " agent " as they're known in the game, represents a real-life country. For example, agent Viper's nationality is from the United States , while Phoenix is from London. The fact that the agents have powers suggest either that magic exists in Valorant's world, or the character's abilities are based on some sort of advanced technol
Viper is an extremely unique hero as her abilities run on fuel and deal a special type of damage called "decay damage." Her fuel is a type of resource that refills over time making some of her abilities have unlimited uses. And decay damage is a special type of damage that eats away at a player's shield and health. The decay damage will not kill a player but will bring them down to 1 health. Once a player leaves the area dealing decay damage they will start to regenerate the health lost from the
Nottingham's interview suggests that Valorant's storytelling won't involve in-game cinematics as seen in games like Red Dead Redemption 2 . Rather, the lore will come through character design and the way characters interact with each other. Furthermore, environmental design and the way the agents interact with their surroundings will help quietly build an understanding of Valorant's world. For example, as a player uses an agent their voice lines give insight into the character's personality. Besides that, agents will interact with each other, also unveiling interpersonal history and relationsh
In an exclusive interview with the YouTube channel Qwixzo, the creative director at Riot Games, David Nottingham, described the developer's plan on how they would tell Valorant's backstory. The lore of Valorant will mostly be delivered through character interaction and environmental elements, and Nottingham says the team has taken careful consideration to create layered personalities and motivations for all of the characters, which the team "can kind of peel back" throughout the game's lifetime. The type of world-building in Valorant , often referred to as environmental storytelling, has been seen previously in similar titles. Overwatch is a prime example of environmental storytelling, and from Nottingham's interview, the similarities between Blizzard's approach and Riot's storytelling is obvious. On telling stories in this manner, Nottingham says, "What's really interesting to me is seeing if that is something that players will engage with, get excited about, or offer their own theori