The first episode of Valorant’s Episode 5 saw the arrival of the new map Pearl, and there’s more content on the way in the form of a new Agent for the third Act coming next week. As we move closer to their anticipated release, we’re compiling a log of everything there is to know so far about Valorant’s Agent 21, Harbor, originally codenamed Mage.
Update 10/13/2022: Riot Games has finally unveiled a gameplay trailer for Harbor, revealing some of his backstory and teasing the water-themed abilities that are set to make him a powerful controller. You can check it out here or scroll down to find it later in this article.
New Valorant Agent Codename ‘Mage’
We’re only a week away from the Agent’s big launch, and so there’s a pretty substantial amount of teasers and leaks that provide a pretty decent overview of what to expect. As a reminder, Harbor’s codename, Mage, was uncovered by well-known Valorant data miner ValorLeaks a couple of months ago.
Remember, Mage was just a codename, just as Bounty Hunter was Fade’s codename and Sprinter was Neon’s. The Agent’s name is actually Harbor, which was unveiled by an image Riot Games’ Twitter revealed last week (above).
What Agent Type Is Harbor? Answered
Harbor is a Controller-type Agent, confirming our earlier suspicions which we had based on the fact that so few had been added to the game since launch.
There are only four controllers in Valorant: Brimstone, Omen, Viper, and Astra. The other Agent-types all have five, and the launch of Astra –the last Controller added to the game– was way back in February of 2021.
Valorant Agent Harbor Abilities
We now have information on the new Valorant Agent Harbor’s abilities, which are as follows:
- High Tide (E) EQUIP a wall of water. FIRE to send the water forward along the ground. HOLD FIRE to guide the water in the direction of your crosshair, passing through the world, spawning a wall along the water’s path. ALT FIRE while bending to stop the water early. Players hit are SLOWED
- Cove (Q) EQUIP a sphere of shielding water. FIRE to throw. ALT FIRE to underhand throw. Upon impacting the ground, spawn a water shield that blocks bullets.
- Cascade (C) EQUIP a wave of water. FIRE to send the wave rolling forward and through walls. RE-USE to stop the wave from moving further. Players hit are SLOWED.
- Reckoning (X) EQUIP the full power of your Artifact. FIRE to summon a geyser pool on the ground. Enemy players in the area are targeted by successive geyser strikes. Players caught within a strike are CONCUSSED.
Check out Harbor gameplay:
When Will Harbor Come to Valorant? Answered
Harbor will launch next week as part of Episode 5, Act 3. He is the major new content update, just as Pearl was for Act 2. For those in North America, access will begin on Tuesday, Oct. 18, while those in Europe and Asia will have to wait a day longer, as is typical. Stay tuned for more Harbor content from Twinfinite over the coming days.
Valorant Agent Mage Lore
After the launch of a Valorant Public Beta Environment (PBE) build a few weeks back, we have some lore details about Mage/Harbor, which have been added to the practice grounds. Taking a look around Brimstone’s office and the area underneath the range, there’s a reference to an individual named Varun Batra, who is a member of a new agency we haven’t heard of before called REALM. Varun Batra is said to be of interest to both the Alpha and Omega worlds (the two worlds in conflict according to Valorant lore). We are now certain that Varun Batra is Mage’s real name (though again, not their in-game name).
The name Varun Batra is of Indian origin, and there have actually been a number of teasers to suggest Mage is of Indian origin. That has now, of course, been confirmed, but let’s recap anyway:
Riot Games last week revealed a teaser that all but confirmed Varun Batra is Indian. Check out the below sequence which features Killjoy and Astra as they zero in on a location in India:
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) October 6, 2022
The launch of Patch 5.07 also saw Cypher make an appearance in the in-game Range, where you can ask him about Batra. There are more references to India and the origins of his backstory:
Spotted on The Range—catch Cypher with intel on the next Agent. pic.twitter.com/PkUsscEx0i
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) October 5, 2022
The fact that Riot has opted to add an Indian Agent to the game actually makes a lot of sense given that we know there’s a major Valorant community in India, and we haven’t had an Indian Agent in the game so far.
The folks at Valorant Update have already done some digging on the name Varun Batra and found that there is a similar name that crops up in Hindu mythology — Varuna. Varuna is the god of oceans in Hindu culture, which could possibly mean that Mage has some form of aquatic powers. This would fall in line with the elemental nature of other Agent abilities, such as fire (Phoenix), earth (Sage), and wind (Jett). Water is the only element not in the game so far (even if Sage’s Ice Wall appears as though it is related to water).
After the above image surfaced, Riot Games then confirmed Harbor (called Mage at the time) would wield water-based abilities, and that their origin will be Indian. This revelation came by way of a new “State of the Agents” developer blog in which senior producer John Goscicki said:
“Aside from Viper, introducing Controllers that can cover large open areas is a blue ocean of opportunity.
We’ve let this soak long enough, and Agent 21 is almost ready to go out. I don’t want to flood you with too much information in this blurb here, so I’ll hold off on saying much more.
“Jald hi milte hain.”
The article also featured the image above, which depicts an Indian-looking vista, Indian food, and an image of India itself.
The above image shows a symbol added to the board just opposite the range in the PBE servers, which some have speculated might also be related to some sort of Hindu symbol. Of course, this could also just be REALM’s symbol, which, as mentioned earlier, is an agency we haven’t heard of before in Valorant.
It’s worth noting that most of the recently added Agents to Valorant’s roster have all had symbols related to them in some way teased ahead of the game’s release, added to areas of existing maps, or other similar teasers.
Finally, we know now that Harbor is a motorcycle enthusiast. Riot Games actually published another two teasers for Harbor earlier this week via its Twitter channel, which not only further hinted at water-based abilities but also suggested he would ride a motorcycle:
A curious sighting… pic.twitter.com/Prf6RpqSlS
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) October 10, 2022
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) October 10, 2022
Again, we’ll keep you posted with new information as and when we hear it. For now, that’s everything there is to know about Valorant Agent 21, Mage. For more content on the game, search Twinfinite or check out some of the related pages below.
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