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Riot Games' first-person-hero-shooter, Valorant, has taken over the world as one of the most popular FPS titles. During its year 1 anniversary, Riot confirmed a mobile port of the title, Valorant Mobile. However, can the game become as popular with smartphone players, as it is with PC esports player base?
There has always been a separation between PC gaming and mobile gaming. However, with the advancement of technology in recent years, the gap has shortened to include mobile ports of popular titles. Which, in turn, has led popular IPs to create dedicated mobile titles.
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What sets Valorant apart?
Riot Games is the studio behind the iconic League of Legends MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) title, and Valorant. The latter is the first game that is not set in the League of Legends world.
Valorant brings together agents with unique abilities. Riot Games has brilliantly woven a unique setting with three-dimensional characters to create a deep lore.
The agents' abilities play a major role in the gameplay, and set it apart from other PC esports shooter titles like CS: GO. Players not only have to select a proper weapon in a match, but also an appropriate agent to balance the team.
Other hero-shooter titles like Overwatch do implement hero-based abilities as well. However, Valorant balances the tactical ability-based gameplay with skillful weapon-based gunplay more brilliantly.
Other factors like the free-to-play model with low-spec requirement, and easy-to-pick up, hard-to-master gameplay, easily keep players engaged with the title.
How could the iconic Valorant gameplay translate to mobile devices?
PC gaming and Mobile gaming are different ends of the spectrum. While technological advancements have made mobile devices capable of running full-on AAA titles from a few years back, there are still multiple limitations.
One of the first hurdles that the developers of Valorant Mobile have to overcome is that of the control scheme.
While the mouse and the keyboard on the PC help the players to be fast with gunplay and tactical inability deployment, the mobile device control is generally limited to the touchscreen.
However, with some careful placement of the UI layout, Riot Games might just be able to maintain authentic Valorant gameplay on the smaller screen in Valorant Mobile.
Another main factor that sets the mobile ports of popular titles apart from the PC counterpart is the graphics department. While this is primarily caused due to limitations in graphics processing chips in mobile devices, the much smaller screens help mask the shortcomings to a certain extent.
While Valorant is quite a low spec demanding title, the graphics may be downgraded even more to get playable framerates on the mobile device. The expected graphics, animation, and gameplay downgrade might be comparable to the mobile version of Fortnite.
Valorant Mobile and its competitors
From the days of Modern Combat to the anticipation for Valorant Mobile, first-person shooter (FPS) titles on the mobile have come a long way and have a promising future ahead.
Over the last few years, mobile gaming has taken leaps of several generations. Aside from the technical barriers being broken down, games such as PUBG Mobile have proven to host a player base for complicated AAA games.
From Grand Theft Auto to Call of Duty, many AAA IPs have either ported their previous titles or developed new entries for mobile devices.
Call of Duty: Mobile is perhaps the most popular FPS title on mobile devices. It maintains the authentic 'Call of Duty feel' while adapting the formula for mobile devices.
However, Call of Duty is more focused on fast-paced gunplay over Valorant's balance of agent-based abilities and gunfights. Riot Games is expected to translate the Valorant formula appreciably to Valorant Mobile.
As a result, fans are expecting the final mobile version to be quite close to the PC version, sustaining the 'vibe' of the game across platforms.
As of yet, Riot hasn’t revealed anything about Valorant Mobile, other than its existence. Therefore, trying to compare the fine aspects of the game, with other FPS mobile titles, is futile to say the least.
With that being said, if Riot is able to maintain the quality of gameplay, Valorant Mobile might very well lead the FPS genre on Android and iOS successfully.
