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Whether it’s your first time playing a first-person shooter or you’re a seasoned veteran, this Valorant Beginner’s Guide will walk you through the fundamentals of Riot Games’ Hero FPS. This guide will help you get started quickly by describing the rules of Valorant and explaining every aspect of the game.
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How Does Valorant Work?
Valorant is a 5v5 competitive FPS in which you play as one of a team of Agents, each with their own set of powers that you can employ to help you win a round. You cannot have numerous persons in your squad playing the same Agent.
Valorant’s main game style is played in rounds of Attackers vs Defenders, and your team is assigned a side at random before the match begins. After 12 rounds, the teams switch sides, and the team that wins 13 rounds first wins the match.
As an Attacker, your purpose in any given round is to assist in the placement of a bomb-like device known as the Spike on one of the map’s several bomb locations. If you and your teammates successfully defend the placed Spike for 45 seconds, it will detonate and you will win that round. As a Defender, your mission is to either disarm the planted Spike before it explodes or to prevent it from being planted before the round time limit of 100 seconds expires. Alternatively, because you only have one life per round, you can just eliminate the entire opposing squad to win that round.
Each round is preceded by a brief Buy Phase in which you use your money (called Creds) to purchase items to help you beat your opponent. You can purchase a variety of equipment, such as armour to increase your health, more effective weapons, or Agent-specific skills. Your unused skills transfer over to the following round, as do your weaponry and remaining armour if you survive.
Every Valorant Game Mode
At any given moment, Valorant has four permanent PvP game modes (Unrated, Competitive, Spike Rush, and Deathmatch) plus a space for a rotating PvP game mode (One of Escalation, Replication, or Snowball Fight).
Alternatively, you can polish your skills against bots in the Range – a practice map with infinite ammo, abilities, and unlocked Agents. See the complete list of Valorant’s game modes.
Agents and their Classifications
Valorant presently has 19 Agents, each with their own set of unique powers. They are divided into four unique roles: Controller, Duelist, Initiator, and Sentinel. For new players, Jett, Phoenix, Brimstone, Sage, and Sova are accessible to play — two more can be obtained quickly via the Play To Unlock Free Agents contract, while the rest must be unlocked by going through their agent contracts.
Weapons Galore
Sidearms and primary weapons are the two types of weapons. If you can afford a Primary, you can carry one of each. Sidearms include handguns, while Primaries include SMGs, Shotguns, Rifles, Sniper Rifles, and Machine Guns.
Valorant’s Battlegrounds Maps
In both Unrated and Competitive, there are 7 maps in rotation. Bind, Haven, Ascent, Icebox, Breeze, Fracture, and Pearl are the active maps in order of release. Split, one of the initial Beta maps, was withdrawn from the queue in Episode 5, Act 1 to make way for the new map, Pearl. Any new or refurbished maps will be added to the map pool, while one of the current seven will be removed from rotation.
Battle Pass
The Battle Pass is an inexpensive way to obtain Valorant aesthetics only through gaming. Valorant is divided into two-month intervals known as Acts. A new Battle Pass is available in each Act to help you progress with XP.
You can gain XP by playing matches or completing daily and weekly assignments. The following is a breakdown of how much XP each game mode awards:
- Awards for Unrated, Competitive, and Replication 100 XP for each round played, 200 XP for each round won.
- Spike Rush provides 1,000 XP.
- Deathmatch provides 900 XP.
- Escalation grants 800 XP upon completion and 200 XP if you win.
- Snowball Fight grants 750 XP for completion and an additional 150 XP for victory.
The Battle Pass is broken into 50 tiers, with a total of 980,000 XP required to complete it. There are five epilogue tiers that each require 36,500 XP and include modest cosmetic bonuses.
The Pass comes with a variety of cosmetics, including skins, sprays, player titles, player cards, gun buddies, and Radianite. There is always a knife skin at tier 50. The majority of the content is restricted until you buy the Pass for 1,000 Valorant Points (VP). Because there is no XP boost for purchasing the Battle Pass, you can wait until near the end of the Act to see your progress and decide whether or not to purchase the Pass.
