With Valorant turning one year old, Riot Games' tactical FPS can definitely be called a success. The game recently hit the 14 million monthly active players mark with 500 million games played which makes it quite the phenomenon, considering it took League of Legends almost a decade to hit such numbers.
This success has seen the developers announce that the game will be adopted for the mobile platform. And what can only be called another mark of success, Valorant has top gaming streamers Shourd and Ninja batting for it.
- Valorant turns one: Offers limited-edition player cards and a free event pass
- Valorant Mobile will bring Riot Games’ hero shooter to smartphones
Michael 'Shroud' Grzesiek, is a retired Counter Strike: Global Offensive professional player who has since become one of the biggest video game streamers in the world has a very vocal take on Valorant.
"I noticed it really early on because it's a genre that I love," says Shroud. "I come from competitive Counter-Strike, and Valorant is the first tac shooter in a long time that has a company behind it that truly gives a damn."
While this might be a jibe at the Counter Strike: Global Offensive developer Valve, it seems to have earned disrepute among gamers for being silent and mostly non-responsive. This is even more surprising considering CSGO is one of its top two games.
Shroud provides more context by saying, "I've said this on stream before, so long as Riot keeps updating the game with new agents, maps, pushing meta changes, and keeping it fresh, Valorant won't go anywhere. The competitive scene and hosting tournaments are also really important for the game long-term."
And on the occasion of Valorant completing one year, Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins pitched in by saying that he "loved the abilities paired with the high-skill gameplay. The graphics looked super clean. Also, everything that Riot touches turn to gold, so I couldn't pass up jumping on this game!"
"I haven't been streaming lately, but I'm still playing off-stream. I love playing games with my friends and I don't anticipate stopping anytime soon. With how often Riot is updating the game and adding new content, that's all any game lover could ask for." Adds Ninja.
With Valorant completing a whole year and Riot's continuous and vocal support for the game, it has joined the likes of Ubisoft's Rainbow Six Siege in being one of the most developer invested FPS multiplayer games. And Valve sure has some catching up to do.
