Gaming fans have compared VALORANT to rival shooters Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and Overwatch, and developer Riot Games is well aware of the comparisons, but the team believes "that's a surface-level comparison to make."
Originally launched for the PC in June 2020, VALORANT is a free-to-play first-person game that blends tactical shooter action with hero gameplay elements with its playable Agents and their sets of unique abilities. Based on just this description, it's easy to see why it's being compared to Valve's popular tactical shooter game and Blizzard's hero shooter. In a recent interview with GamesRadar+, Arnar Hrafn Gylfason, the director of production and product lead for VALORANT at Riot Games, says that it's not the first time he heard that kind of comparison.
After admitting that "it's not the first time I've heard that," Gylfason said, "I think it's an easy correlation to draw, because, hey, it has heroes, and it's a tactical shooter." However, he explains why that comparison is just surface-level.
"I think we feel like that's a surface-level comparison to make," he added. "We feel like we are definitely our own flavor. We are our own identity. And we don't like comparing to other games… I don't think it's fair to other games, I don't think it's fair to what VALORANT has become."
"I think it's more a question of, again, what motivations are we serving, what player motivations are we serving, and what kind of gameplay fantasy are we providing those players? Which is slightly more nuanced, but that's not the first time I've heard that comparison, no."
Gylfason also told GamesRadar+ in the same interview that he doesn't consider VALORANT as a hero shooter as the game "scratches a different itch than the kind of hero action shooters that we've been seeing in this space for the past few years." He explains how at the core, VALORANT is a competitive, tactical shooter, and that it "scratches a different itch than the kind of hero action shooters that we've been seeing in this space for the past few years," leading him to believe that "they serve different needs, and they serve different player motivations."
The console version of VALORANT recently launched for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and it's free-to-play with in-game purchases. Cross-over gameplay with PC is not available.
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