Video game lore aficionados and enthusiasts out there, Riot Games just expanded the ‘VALORANT’ universe once again with their latest cinematic video, REVELATION.
The cinematic follows four separate events ongoing in real-time. Astra and Harbor are seen exploring what looks like massive ruins deep at the heart of a forest in India. Fade on the other hand is in the middle of stealing important information at a club in Istanbul. Across the seas, Jett, Raze, and Killjoy are carefree and enjoying a meal in Korea. Lastly at an unspecified location, Sage and Omen are undergoing a practice run with killer robots in the Valorant Headquarters. Towards the end of the video, after Fade collects the information she was seeking and sends it to her comrades, we go back to the ruins in India, where Astra and Harbor are intercepted by Fade, Jett, Raze, Killjoy, and Sage—a standoff ensues.
Famously known for their hit games, the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) ‘League of Legends’ and the first-person tactical hero shooter ‘VALORANT’, Riot games is also known for producing high-quality cinematics that delves into their title’s overall story—it’s done so well that fans would always request for the game development studio to work on a film or TV adaptation—they did listen to this plea as shown with the release of Netflix’s ‘Arcane’.
Teasing those heavily interested in a game’s hidden lore, with ‘VALORANT’, they’ve gone a step further than ever before by periodically releasing story cinematics that shows the various characters of their game interacting with each other in their ever-expanding world, operating with a narrative that’s tightly wound to the game itself. This is very different from what they did with ‘League of Legends’ where although there were cinematics being regularly released, these showed minimal interaction between their characters, and there really isn’t a tale to be told. There’s no story to tie the game’s mechanics to, unlike with ‘VALORANT’ where more than its characters, the map, and even the gameplay is explained.
So far, ‘VALORANT’ follows the story of a covert elite group that is compromised of radiants who are specially powered individuals, and gifted combatants, whose goal is to defend the earth from attackers from a separate “mirror earth” from a specialized unit of soldiers who look exactly like them—they’re doppelgangers who want to steal a key resource “radianite”, for their world’s survival. ‘REVELATION’ the latest cinematic further delves into this story while also teasing the game’s upcoming map, Lotus.
Watch REVELATION, the Episode 6 Cinematic here!
Stills taken from REVELATION, the Episode 6 Cinematic