Valorant vs Overwatch vs Counter Strike

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A sneak peek into the esports industry

Esports and gaming have started gaining a firm foothold in the mainstream industry, for the last few years. It was just a popular niche a few years back and now it has become the primary form of entertainment, across the world. Though esport is just a subset of the sports culture, it has turned into a full-fledged industry now.

Celebrities like Michael Jordan, DJ Marshmello, and Drake have been championing its cause. Total viewership of this industry shows an estimate of showing a growth of 9% annually, between 2019 and 2023, as per a report from Business Insider Intelligence.

Video games have always been at the forefront of innovation with frequent updates of established media. The games industry is a competitive sector that has harnessed new technologies to survive and grow with long-term success. The wave of new technologies has had a huge impact on changing the digital media. 

The games industry runs on customer preferences and to fulfill their audience demands it has embraced 6 new trends – 

1. To look at Games as a service

2. Cross-screen entertainment

3. Creator and live streaming tools

4. Video channels and the making of communities

5. Creation and involvement on the audience front

6. Consumers entertaining consumers

These 6 esport trends have shaped the games industry today. They have led the whole sector into – business innovation, broadcasting of technology, and the creation of communities. These three pillars further will have an important role to play in the industry’s future.

Esports have employed, connected, and innovated as a service reshaping the industry sold content. Responsive games have played a huge role in reaching out to a wider audience and then monetizing the reach as they go on creating a trend. 

In today’s digital environment the users/consumers need to access content on-demand across platforms. This releases the players from being tied down in one platform and the emergence of responsive games as the service model caters to this area.

What Are First Person Shooter Games?

The First-Person Shooter is a video game genre with a first-person perspective concentrated on combat with a gun and other weapons. This helps the player to experience the action through the eyes of the protagonist.

It does share traits with other shooter games which makes it fall under the banner of Action Games. The genre can be traced far back to the MAZE WAR, developed in 1973 and 1974’s Spasim.

The First Person Shooter Games can be distinguished from light gun shooters, a similar genre game with a first-person perspective that uses conventional input devices for movement, unlike the first-person shooter. Light gun shooters such as Virtua Cop uses “on-rails” (scripted) movement whereas the first-person shooter like Doom given the player more freedom to roam. Like most other shooter games, the first-person shooters also involve an avatar, one or more ranged weapons and a varying number of enemies.

OVERWATCH

Overwatch, a trending shooter game, though first-person can be played by multiplayers. Published and developed by American Company, Blizzard Entertainment, it is a team-based game. There are two teams, each having six members and each player gets to select from an offering of 30 characters, who are labeled as the “heroes”. The game play is unique. Players in the game can choose between three general roles, dedicated to their purpose. Players can switch these heroes during a match which was intentionally designed by the developers to encourage dynamic team compositions that adapt to the situation.

Overwatch was specifically released, keeping in mind PlayStation 4. Later, May 2016 also saw it getting released for Windows and Xbox One. Nintendo Switch users could start playing on it from October 2019. The features of the game ranges to many different modes including casual and competitive ranked play. The gameplays support various e-sport competitions including the famous Blizzard’s Overwatch League.

CS: GO

Developed by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment, Counter-Strike: Global Offence is another first-person shooter game video game. 

CS: GO is the fourth game of the Counter-Strike series released in August 2012 for Windows, OS X, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3. The Linux version was released in 2014.

This is an objective-based, multiplayer video game. The design is of two opposing teams of Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists who compete in game mode to fulfill objectives which include securing a location to plant or defuse a bomb and rescuing or guarding hostages. 

Global offensive witnessed the introduction of new weapons and types of equipment that were not seen previously, amongst which the most notable one was the firebomb for each team. 

VALORANT

Developed by Riot Games, Valorant was first announced by a code name Project A in October 2019 as an upcoming free-to-play multiplayer First-person shooter. 

Set to release in the summer of 2020, Valorant is a tactical shooter, team-based FPS. The assumption by players on the control of agents, characters from a plethora of countries and cultures across the world. 

The main game mode lets players join either the defending or the attacking team with five players in each team. The game has an array of weapons which include sidearms, submachine guns, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and machine guns. Spike is a bomb that the attacking team beholds and the objective is the successful planting of the same.

Riot Games who are also the developers of the League of Legends, have taken a foresight into the future and is all set to launch the Valorant anytime soon.

Similarities And Differences 

The first live streaming of Valorant fetched an immense number of criticism from the gamers. Although it was first thought to the competition and killer of the CS: GO many gamers found profound similarities between Overwatch and the Riot developed Valorant.

The game has been tagged as a hybrid of Overwatch and CS: GO. Although Valorant might still make it big at the esports yet, it cannot touch the mark of CS: Go which had evolved with time and achieved success. This could mean that Valorant is up for a different FPS title but no competition to CS: GO.

The gameplay trailer of VALORANT, released by Riot portrayed a mix of CS: GO and OVERWATCH.

The main game mode is the signature bomb defusal like CS: GO, as one team plants the bomb whereas the other defends or secures the area. The fast-paced game mode lends subtlety to the gameplay with a blend of abilities and gun combat.

Each match starts with a 5 vs. 5 with a total of 25 rounds which makes the win with a 13 round match. 

The sudden flash fights and fast yet intense gameplay may cause a single round to end within 1-2 minutes.

Valorant tries to create a balance between the arcadey overpowered ability-based gamely and the skilled gunplay fights. Guns are an important part of a players’ arsenal which makes the ability to shoot all the more important.

To reach the games’ highest level a player has to master both abilities and gunplay. 

Why Should Valorant Be Considered Superior to The Other Two?

Valorant is definitely in a more popular stand when it comes to the advantages over the other two. Let’s check them out.

• No collateral damages

Well for starters, Valorant hasn’t given any simple extra damage or health to its characters whereas it has focused on things such as area denial. Another feature of the games’ stereotyped military man character – Brimstone, is he can just open up a map and point out the placement for his smoke grenades unlike the tedious and overcomplicated Counterstrike skill of aiming perfectly aiming the grenades.

•  Easy to play

Riot has been concentrating more on the competitive edge of the Valorant with commitments to their belief of a fundamental competitive shooter.

Most of the abilities have to be equipped to be used which means you need to put away the gun if you want to activate it. 

•  Stay concentrated

The Overwatch flashbacks may come in and go with the capacities and the lights but 

Valorant can actually not attain that speed and energy. The most perplexing fights in this Riot’s game face inhibition. They are subjugated by strategic positioning and other tactics. this gives recognition to the developer’s sense of consequences for all kinds of action in the game, as each death can get a swing around.

• Everyone can be a gamer

As the promise stands by the developers of the Valorant that it will be easily playable for gamers all around the world with low PC requirements and almost everyone with as low as 30+ frames per second. In similarity with CS: GO the system requirements are low to play the game although with the striking difference for players playing on 30 versus 60 versus 144Hz monitors. This gives an advantage to players equipped with a higher grade.

• No cheating allowed!!

Valorant also promises to run on 128 tick servers, which Valve the developers of CS” Go were unable to give to its players. They have also promised an anti-cheat system although the effectiveness of it is yet to be seen. 

Valorant anti-cheat lead, Mr. Paul Chamberlain has been found saying that cheating had started much earlier than he even expected. As a response to such an early intrusion of cheating in the game, Riot has lured the hackers with a compensation of $100, 000 if they can get through the anti-cheat software of Valorant. The name of the anti-cheat software that they use is Valorant, which can run on the user’s PC every time, even if they are not playing the game.

Conclusion

The official statement on the release of Valorant came at an interesting time during the Riot Games. At the last year’s celebration of the 10th anniversary of the League of Legends, Riot code-named the game as Project A and asked to look out for its big opening anytime in the coming year.