All eight 'Valorant' characters and abilities explained

Riot Games, the company known for creating the PC behemoth League of Legends recently unveiled Valorant, their alleged ‘Overwatch-killer’ that began life as ‘Project A.’ While it’s not fully known what the shooter will entail, Valorant will have 10 characters that are planned to be available at launch.

According to Valorant executive producer Anna Donlon when speaking to IGN, “Of the ten or so agents available at Valorant’s launch, five will be fully unlocked out of the gate. From there, players can unlock additional characters.”

To unlock characters, players can either earn them through blood, sweat, and tears or they can outright purchase any desired character through a nominal fee that acts as a shortcut. It’s unknown which agents will begin as free and which will be locked, but we know it won't be tied to the game’s battle pass. Riot has promised on multiple occasions that, despite having free and ‘premium’ tiered battle passes, the premium tier won’t give players a gameplay advantage. Presumably, having access to extra characters that are locked for others counts as an advantage.

Out of the 10 characters that are known to ship with Valorant when it launches in Summer 2020, we know eight of them, so you can start planning which ones are worth buying right away! Each character is known as an 'agent.' Agents can use four abilities. They have two buyable abilities, which can be purchased at the start of the round then need to be repurchased after being used. Characters then have a Signature ability, these are native to the character, but their cooldown time and the number of uses available per round can vary between agents. Lastly, all characters have an Ultimate ability that can be fueled over time or by completing objectives like getting kills and planting bombs.

Knowing that each character has that wide an arsenal, makes it all the more difficult to choose characters at a glance!

Luckily for your needs, we’ve listed all the known characters and their abilities below!

Who are the Valorant agents and their abilities?

BRIMSTONE

Buyable 1: Incendiary – Launch a grenade that deploys a damaging field of fire

Buyable 2: Stim Beacon – Target a nearby location to call in the beacon, giving all players near the beacon rapidfire.

Signature: Sky Smoke – Use your map to call in smokescreens that obscure vision, click to set the locations, and confirm to launch.

Ultimate: Orbital Strike – Target a nearby location, launch a devastating orbital strike that damages enemies for several seconds.

CYPHER

Buyable 1: Trapwire – Place a tripwire between two walls, triggered enemies are restrained and revealed for a short time. If the trap hasn’t been destroyed, it activates to daze the trapped victim.

Buyable 2: Cyber Cage – Place a remote activation trap, reactive to create a cage that slows enemies who pass through it. Traps can be detonated.

Signature: Spycam – Place a remote camera, once placed reactive to view the video feed. Left click while the camera is activated to fire a tracking dart.

Ultimate: Neural Theft – Once an enemy is killed, information can be extracted of the locations of their living allies.

JETT

Buyable 1: Cloudburst – Throw a cloud of fog that obscures vision on impact.

Buyable 2: Updraft – Launch upwards after a brief delay.

Signature: Tailwind – Dart a short distance.

Ultimate: Blade Storm – Throw deadly throwing knives that deal damage and kill on headshots. A kill restores daggers, left click throws a single dagger and right click throws all remaining daggers.

OMEN

Buyable 1: Paranoia – Cast a shadow in a straight line that blinds anyone it touches

Buyable 2: Shadow Walk – After a delay, teleport a short distance.

Signature: Dark Cover – Cast an orb that bursts into a sphere of shadow obscuring the final location. Can be charged to increase distance.

Ultimate: From the Shadows – Select anywhere on the map to teleport and reform, will initially appear as a shadow, which can be killed by enemies and cancel the teleport. If teleport is successful, you become invisible for a short time.

PHOENIX

Buyable 1: Hot Hands – Throw a fireball that explodes after a short delay on impact with the ground. The fire zone damages enemies but heals Phoenix.

Buyable 2: Blaze – Cast a flame wall that blocks enemy vision and damages anyone passing through it. The wall can be bent.

Signature: Curveball – Cast a curved flare that bursts into a light after a short delay, temporarily blinding anyone and can be curved left and right.

Ultimate: Run it Back – Marks your current location. If you die while this ability is active, or when it expires, you’ll respawn at the marked location with full health.

SAGE

Buyable 1: Slow Orb – An orb that breaks into a slowing field on impact with the found, all caught in the field are slowed, grounded, and make a noise when moving.

Buyable 2: Barrier Orb – A wall that can be rotated.

Signature: Healing Orb – Heal an ally or yourself to full health over a few seconds.

Ultimate: Resurrection – Target a friendly corpse, after a short delay, revive them with full health.

SOVA

Buyable 1: Shock Bolt – Fire and explosive bolt that damages enemies on impact

Buyable 2: Owl Drone – Deploy and control a drone that reveals enemies around the map.

Signature: Recon Bolt – Fire a bolt that deploys a sonar emitter and tags nearby enemies, revealing them.

Ultimate: Hunter’s Fury – Fire up to three energy blasts that spear across the entire map and each hit enemy takes damages and is marked.

VIPER

Buayble 1: Snakebite – Fire a projectile that explodes into a pool of acid that does damage.

Buyable 2: Poison Cloud – Throw a cloud of gas that can be reactivated to create a smoke cloud which costs fuel. This can be redeployed after a cooldown.

Signature: Toxic Screen – Deploy a line of gas that can be reactivated to create a wall of toxic gas which costs fuel.

Ultimate: Viper’s Pit – A toxic cloud covers a large radius and highlights enemies to Viper, the duration of the cloud extends if Viper remains in the cloud.

There are still two additional characters that will be available at launch that have yet to be unveiled. From what we know, Valorant will launch in Summer 2020.

Valorant will launch in Summer 2020, exclusively for PC.