Riot Games Takes Aim At Overwatch, Counter-Strike With New Shooter

The League of Legends developer has unveiled its next game, a multiplayer first-person shooter called Valorant.

Riot describes Valorant as a “5v5 character-based tactical shooter where creativity is your greatest weapon.”

It appears to marry the precise and highly lethal gunplay of Valve’s Counter-Strike to the stylised, over-the-top character design of Blizzard’s Overwatch, the two most popular games in the same genre.

Valorant will be free-to-play when it launches in the middle of this year. A closed beta test period will take place soon and interested players can now sign up to participate.

Valorant will feature a roster of eight playable character, each with a unique set of four abilities. Games will take place over rounds in which teams are tasked to attack or defend an objective. Players can upgrade their character’s abilities between rounds.

Riot Games is one of the biggest development studios in the world with 24 offices across the globe, including Sydney. It released League of Legends in 2009 and the League of Legends spin-off Teamfight Tactics in 2019. As of September 2019, Riot said League of Legends had nearly eight million concurrent players globally every day while Teamfight Tactics reached 33 million monthly players.