Riot reveals Filipino Valorant agent Neon
Riot Games have revealed that a Filipino Valorant agent—Neon—is coming to its hit hero shooter later this month.
A fair bit was already known about Neon, then codenamed “Sprinter,” prior to her reveal proper. Details about Valorant’s 18th agent have been floating around the game’s files for months, first uncovered in July of 2021 by dataminer @ValorLeaks.
But now that we have her trailer, we’ve got more details including what her abilities look like, her release date and her lore—including the fact that she hails from Manila.
We don’t yet know the specifics of how Neon’s abilities work, but her trailer provides our first glimpses of the Filipino Valorant agent putting them to good use.
First of all, we can see that she can sprint and slide—the former hinted by her development codename. These will undoubtedly make her a favorite among players who enjoy rapid mobility. Beyond this, we can also see her summoning two barriers side by side, providing coverage on both sides in a straight line. (Read: Valorant Mobile revealed by Riot)
Then, we see what seems to be her Ultimate Ability, which allows her to fire electric beams from her fingertips. Interestingly enough, the trailer shows her activating this after what seems to be a lethal shot, possibly indicating that it only activates when she dies. Whether or not this actually is the case, however, is unknown—it could all just be creative editing on Riot’s part.
Neon is just the latest Filipino character added to a big esports title in recent memory. She follows in the footsteps of Josie Rizal, who was added to Tekken 7‘s launch roster by Bandai Namco back in 2015. With characters like these, hopefully, we’ll get to see more Filipino representation in top esports games in the future.
As for when we’ll get to play the Filipino Valorant agent, Neon is set to arrive as part of the game’s “Episode 4 Act 1” update, which is set to drop on January 22, 2022.
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