Valorant, Riot Games’ foray into the tactical shooter genre, has achieved immense success since its launch. As we enter 2024, it remains not only a competitive gaming powerhouse but also boasts a thriving community of passionate players. Fresh off the exhilarating VCT Masters Madrid, where Sentinels clinched the trophy, and with the recent introduction of Clove, Valorant’s first non-binary agent, anticipation among players is palpable for what lies ahead.
In a special press conference held before the VCT Masters Madrid Grand Finals, Anna Donlon, Valorant's SVP and Executive Producer, offered exciting insights into Valorant’s ongoing development and upcoming plans. This includes updates on the Replay System, a deep dive into agent balancing, exploring the possibility of adding Valorant agents to Riot’s upcoming fighting game (2XKO), and more!
Executive Producer shares insights into Valorant’s future at VCT Masters Madrid
With its flourishing global esports scene, active community engagement, and diverse character roster, it’s no surprise that Valorant stands as one of the fastest-growing games in recent years, reshaping the landscape of esports and online gaming since its debut.
Anna Donlon, at the helm of production, leads a team of seasoned game developers, shaping Valorant’s trajectory and production with over twenty years of experience in game development and a deep-rooted passion for competitive shooter games. Prior to joining Riot, Donlon honed her expertise at the FPS studio Treyarch, where she worked as a Senior Producer on titles such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 & 2.
While specifics might be under wraps, can you offer some general insights into Valorant’s development roadmap for the next 12 months? What kind of new content or features can players look forward to?
You can expect all of the same wonderful content drops that we usually do year over year, really great agents that should shift the game. Probably... I'd be surprised if we didn't release a new map this year. And then, obviously, all of the Battle Passes, skins, Premier seasons, everything. I think those things just keep getting better and better. So, for us, it's not just about releasing the same things every year, it's about really upping our game every year.
From a features perspective, I think we released a lot of new features last year, so from a pure new features perspective, it's probably not going to be as aggressive of a year as it was in 2023.
Can you provide an update on the development progress of Valorant's Replay System and any challenges the team has encountered along the way?
I was expecting this question, so I'm not shy to talk about replay. Replay is a system that we absolutely believe we should have in Valorant, and it's one that we talked about developing. I'm gonna be super honest, it is way more complicated to implement it into Valorant than we wanted it to be. A lot of that has to do with optimisations we made in the game before we even launched it. So, now that we're trying to dig into the systems and try to get that replay system online, it is really complicated.
It doesn't mean we're not gonna do it. We're fully committed to doing it, and we are doing work on it. I just don't have an ETA! And it would feel a lot better if I could sit up here today and talk to everybody and say "Here's when it's gonna come," but we don't have an ETA, and that's not the best spot for me to be in.
But what we can commit to is giving more updates, because we've been really, really quiet on it, and I don't think that's been great. So, we're working on getting some things locked in so we can provide better updates, and that's what we'll do. But it's definitely still in development.
We’re about to see Clove have a big reveal shortly. What are your thoughts on how Clove will play competitively?
I can’t wait to see pros get their hands on Clove, honestly. They bring something so interesting into the game. I think they’re gonna bring a level of depth, and a level of creativity and zaniness, that I think will be really interesting to see how those pros adapt to. We all get really excited when we see new agents find their way onto a live event — we, at home, get really excited when we see a new agent enter the mix. It might take a while with Clove — we’re right at the start of the season, and we’ll see how quickly they’re integrated, but I do think this one is a little bit of a curveball, so it’ll be exciting to see where they end up.
Is there anything you’re doing behind the scenes to prepare for the next time that leaks occur for e-Valorant content?
Every single time [leaks] happens... we wonder why it happens, and almost every time it happens, it happens for a slightly different reason. And so, we’re constantly looking at our processes and trying to figure out how to tighten them up a bit. In some cases, it’s intentional, in other cases it’s literally just an innocent mistake that someone has made and we really don’t want to make those people feel bad for having just like read something wrong or gotten a timezone wrong or whatever it is.
And like I said, there’s different reasons each time it happens, but each time it happens: we go back in retro, why it happened, so we can go back and tighten up our processes and make them better.
It’s always really hard for the teams who spend so much time just trying to make sure that we have a synchronisation and an order that we want things to go in, to create the perfect rhythm and the perfect moment — so when things happen, it’s always a little disruptive. But I would say we have a world-class team back at Riot who is kind of, unfortunately, ready for these types of things and they have many playbooks on what to do. And hopefully today’s experience with Clove won’t be jeopardized at all; hopefully, everyone will still get to experience them the way that we really hope to.
After Chamber, a lot of the agents’ release seems to be a lot less powerful. We haven’t seen Deadlock or Iso at Masters Madrid, and Gekko needed buffs to be viable. Did Chamber’s overperformance make you guys reassess the strength that you wanted to release agents at?
No — the balancing act of keeping our agents in a really good play spot is a constant act. Our teams are constantly looking at how things are balancing out, every choice they make has a cascading impact on every single other choice that was made previously. And then, once you get them into players’ hands, you learn a bunch of new stuff about them, and then you immediately start making modifications and adapting.
Obviously, we do make some intentional choices — I think we’re pretty honest about it when we make very specific intentional choices around agent balance and major changes — but no. I do think that the team is getting better — they’ve already had a really good grasp on it, I think they have a better grasp on it than they’ve ever had before, so I’m really hopeful in the future that those shifts might not feel as significant unless they’re fully intended to feel that significant.
How far along is Valorant Mobile in development? Can fans expect a launch in the near future?
Development continues on Valorant Mobile. I have no significant updates today, but we are still working through that game and its gameplay. We haven’t had any significant updates except for, I think, some leaks from some play tests, which – I mean, if you’re playtesting a thing, it’s always a good sign. So no official comms from us right now, but hopefully some updates maybe even later this year.
Have there been any conversations or collaborations between Valorant and the 2XKO team about featuring Valorant agents in the fighting game?
I wouldn’t rule it out. We want to see how 2XKO does. I’m really excited to be bringing that game to players. I don’t think we have any immediate plans to bring the two worlds together, but I definitely wouldn’t rule it out. I think if that's what players in that community are looking for, we'd be really open to it. We've definitely thought about it, and I think there's a world where I can definitely see that happening.
That's a wrap on the exciting gaming-related updates during the special press conference with Riot leadership at VCT Masters Madrid! To delve deeper and explore everything revealed, including the esports side of things, be sure to check out the full press conference online.
If you’re interested in learning more about Valorant, feel free to check out what Episode 8 Act 2 has to offer in our comprehensive guide, detailing its updates to Premier, Battle Pass, and more! On top of that, learn all about the five new skins for the Sovereign 2.0 skinline, and the upcoming underground map, here.