While Riot Games has done an impressive job adding new modes, Agents, and maps to Valorant since launch, the lore of the game’s mysterious world hasn’t been given much attention. That’s set to change moving forward, though, as the development team has recently expressed its intentions to incorporate “some sense of persistence or change over time” to each map.
That’s according to Valorant’s creative director, David Nottingham, who spoke about the matter during an interview with The Washington Street Post earlier this week.
“I love thinking about how do we give people a rich world, both in the play experience and from a narrative point of view, that can give them those ingredients to be able to go and just craft their own theories and then create their own stories and run with it,” Nottingham said.
“[Split] sort of reaffirmed something, which is something that we’re going to be investing more in, in the maps going forward, including Breeze, which is starting,” Nottingham continued. “We’re not thinking of a map as a static, frozen-in-time element.”
Split, of course, was used to tease the arrival of Agent 14, Yoru, and more recently its shop windows advertized upcoming cosmetic items ahead of a new skin bundle launch. But it sounds as though Riot is keen to take that same concept to the next level, offering the story and lore tidbits that I’ve long thought were sorely needed.
Nottingham then alluded to one particular phase of the game that would serve as a catalyst for interactive storytelling:
“I think a lot about how when you first drop into the game, you’ve got that time before the bubble comes down. This is a great opportunity for players to express themselves, for giving players more tools to interact with a map or each other, for things that are going on in the world that are more dynamic, that you can explore and interact with during the pre-round.”
“Those are the types of things that I get really excited about and I want us to build over time so that players really do start to feel like every time they’re going to drop into a map, there could be a new surprise or something else that they’ll see that deepens their understanding of the world, or just is another fun way for them to communicate and express themselves to their teammates.”
This should come as music to the ears of many players, including myself, who have long wished that Valorant’s intriguing world and compelling characters need a better platform to shine beyond the occasional cinematic trailer.
For more on Valorant, check out Twinfinite’s detailed breakdown of the game’s latest map, Breeze. If you’re curious about which skin bundle we think is best, we’ve ranked the best 10 here.
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