Agents are the tip of the spear with VALORANT. They let players explore new power fantasies, new gameplay fantasies, new cultures, and of course, new metas. My favorite part of working on them is making players feel seen. The small details and cultural nuances that make regions cheer together.
First up: HARBOR
With Harbor, our goal was to shatter any Indian stereotypes. In bold Indian fashion, we launched him with a short Bollywood Action film. Did he actually launch himself off a cliff on his motorcycle? Who knows, but he sure looked cool. His theme song was a special addition. I briefed composers ARB4 on creating an Indian hip hop track that seamlessly integrated more classic Indian instrumentation.
Poster design by Brandon Meier
His gameplay trailer brings to life his big brother personality. He protects and creates space for his team. I also worked with a local creator in India to craft some extra UE scenes for this piece.
Harbor was recently reworked to put him into a stronger meta position. It only made sense to rework/remix his theme song as well. I also worked with our devs to record a new Hindi voiceline in game that players went wild over.
This project was fast, fun, and full of pivots. We had one week after our initial briefing to write a voiceline for the trailer. We tried to sum up what it means to be Turkish in a single line. The tears from our regional team and Turkish players told me we hit the mark. From there, we worked backwards in creating a mind bending flurry that seamlessly blended our agents’ deepest fears set to a custom composition by ARB4 with a Turkish vocalists and traditional Turkish instrumentation.
Deadlock’s launch entered the chat as a full Episode launch. We started production before her gameplay kit was fully locked. We pivoted to focus more on her power fantasy and origin to setup what it feels like to play as her. This resulted in a psychological creature thriller inspired by movies like Alien and The Thing.
Poster design by Brandon Meier