After a pretty explosive launch,Valoranthas started to find its place in the competitive scene. Its first official Riot-hosted tournamentwrapped up with 100 Thieves' victory, and the game shows no signs of slowing.
One thing that has been a bit sparse forValorantso far is its story. This is understandable, since the game is primarily an arena shooter, a genre notoriously difficult to incorporate an ongoing story into. However, one player has discovered something that could hint at a story update in the near future. There’s reason to suspect that the strange effect discovered may even hint at a new character to be released soon.
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The first thing to note is thatValoranthas a patch coming up. Thingschanging inValorant’s patch 1.14 include the Icebox map and Sage’s Wall, two things players have long had complaints about. It’s on Icebox that the above mentioned effect was seen. Just before a match began in earnest, one player left the spawn zone for his team and saw several strange, dark eruptions along the ground. They looked and sounded a lot like strange footprints, and the visual effect gave the impression of someone splashing through liquid shadow.
Some replies to the tweet speculate about what these could indicate. A few suggest it may just be a glitch centered around the upcoming patch. However, it seems unlikely that a glitch would look and behave like something so specific. The last time there were glitches that could be counted at that magnitude related to a patch, Riotrolled back the patch and called it a “nightmare.“There is another possibility however: the footsteps could be hinting at a new Agent. Some leakers have already hinted at a new agent coming to the game, and these phantom footsteps may herald their arrival.
What exactly the footsteps indicate about the Agent, if that is indeed what they’re suggesting, is not clear. This could indicate an invisibility power, or some sort of misdirection ability. Visual misdirection has been used before in many games, but the idea of auditory misdirection is less explored. Perhaps the Agent relates to Icebox itself, a mapmany players don’t likethat nevertheless may have more significance to some upcoming reveal.
Such an outlandish marketing idea would not at all be out of place for Riot. The company is famous for trying alternative marketing for its characters, althoughnot all these campaigns work out so well. Hopefully this indicates a fun new Agent that players will get to try soon.
