Riot's mystery competitive FPS game has been given an official name - Valorant. From how the game functions, it is very much similar to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Overwatch. Some are even saying that Valorant is a mix of CS: GO and Overwatch.
Many people are even thinking that Valorant looks and plays so well that it will easily steal the limelight from CS: GO. So, let's take a look at all the major differences and similarities between both games.
Characters
In CS: GO, we've got our regular operators that fall either on the Counter-Terrorist side or Terrorist side. All of these operators have access to a selection of weapons and feature no special abilities. On the other hand, characters in Valorant are called Agents, who also have special tactical abilities just like the Heroes in Overwatch or Operators in Rainbow Six Siege. Currently, we know that there are seven agents in Valorant:
- Viper, a female agent that seems to have a deadly attitude
- Sova, a male agent that looks quite heroic
- Phoenix, has fire abilities
- Jett, the speed demon
- Cypher, a bionic cowboy
- Sage, a female agent that plays the role of a medic
- Brimstone, the brawn
Weapons
The weaponry in Valorant seems to be a mix of modern and futuristic weapons. There are certain weapons that are similar to the weapons seen in CS: GO, like the popular AK-47. However, these weapons are designed to work on the futuristic maps featured in Valorant.
Rounds
Valorant will have a similar rounds-based system as seen in CS: GO, but the former will feature 24 rounds instead of 30 rounds. Moreover, Valorant's points table will feature attackers vs. defenders instead of Counter-Terrorists and Terrorists.
Cheating
We all know that Valve has been criticized over and over again for its notorious VAC banning system. However, with the implementation of the 'Overwatch' feature, it has seen some positive strides. Valorant hasn't mentioned if a similar feature will be coming in the game. That said, the game is using League of Legends' Vanguard anti-cheat program, which prevents tampering. Moreover, Valorant will have a server-authoritative game architecture, which will prevent game-altering cheats like speed hacks and teleportation.
Server Tick Rate
Riot is aiming at providing 128-tick servers for all public matches in Valorant. Games in CS: GO are played on 64-tick servers. 128-tick servers mean that your games are going to run much smoother. Additionally, Riot is also planning to upsample player movements by 128 fps, even for those who are lagging. This will limit your rages when you die to a player who seems to be teleporting around the map due to poor internet connection. This feature will combat the notorious peeker's advantage, which tends to provide an advantage to players who play on low-quality internet connections.
System Requirements
CS: GO runs pretty decently on low-end PCs and Valorant will take a similar approach, making the game accessible to all players across all hardware. Riot has stated that the game will be optimized for "a wide variety of PC hardware," and those playing the game on high-end hardware will obviously have an advantage over others. However, this advantage is going to be very light.
The requirements for Valorant are as follow:
Minimum (30 fps):
- OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit)
- RAM: 4GB
- CPU: Intel i3-370M
- GPU: Intel HD 3000 (1GB VRAM)
Recommended (60 fps):
- OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit)
- RAM: 4GB
- CPU: Intel i3-370M
- GPU: Intel HD 3000 (1GB VRAM)
High-end (144+ fps):
- OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit)
- RAM: 4GB
- CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2Ghz
- GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti (1GB VRAM)
This means if you've got a decent PC that is capable of running the latest games at 60FPS, you might actually be able to play Valorant at 2k and 4k resolutions without performance drops.
Valorant will be free-to-play when it launches sometime this summer.
Last Thought
Although I thought of giving you my opinion as to whether or not Valorant will steal the limelight from CS: GO, I think with all the major differences and similarities stated, it would be a better question to ask if Valorant will be the next competitive FPS game that gamers drift toward? Whatever your opinion ends up being, make sure that you let us know in the comments.
