Valorant is out now on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, four years after its launch on PC, but despite the recent influx of new and upcoming hero shooters like Marvel Rivals and Concord, Riot Games is confident that its release "scratches a different itch" overall.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, Riot Games' director of production and product lead for Valorant, Arnar Hrafn Gylfason, tells us that "we don't think of [Valorant] as a hero shooter," anyway. "At the core, we are a tactical shooter," he says, even though "we happen to have agents who have abilities," which in itself "gives us a lot of liberty and leeway to create all kinds of gameplay fantasies and IP creative fantasies as well."
He continues: "At the core, we are like a very serious, fairly sweaty, competitive, tactical shooter. I think that scratches a different itch than the kind of hero action shooters that we've been seeing in this space for the past few years. And then we're seeing that in how players show up. We're not saying one is better than the other, but they serve different needs, and they serve different player motivations."
Gylfason concludes that at the end of the day, even amongst what's an increasingly crowded genre, "I think there's room for all."
