End of Year: Creative Team

A thanks from the team that thinks about the lore and the creative cohesion of all your experiences.

Hi VALORANT community, 

So Creative Team here!

Wait, who dat?

Well essentially, we are a broad collective of people that spans audio, narrative and art, that specifically works with ALL the various teams that create the beautiful VALORANT content we’ve released to you in 2020.

It’s our goal to make sure that all the various pieces of the game feel part of a distinct, cohesive creative universe.  One way we do this, is to drive a lot of the details that you see in our world. For example:

  • Inspire the design of Agents, menus, maps and music.
  • Inform cinematics, in game VFX and Audio, props and environments.
  • Feed curiosity, passion and theorycrafting amongst YOU, our community, around the world lore, its conflict, backstories and narrative journey ahead.

In 2020 we worked on areas as diverse as:

  • Character backstories - Who are these Agents and what is VALORANT Protocol?  What are we fighting for (and who are we fighting against?  Who is Omen really?  What school did Phoenix get suspended from?)
  • Battlepass content - (those teaser cards that hint at new maps, Agents or lore backstory, including some hidden answers to the above)
  • Map environments (why IS that ancient Japanese ship on Icebox?) 
  • Music! - Working with talented music folk on our theme music, the dynamic in game music, and those fun Agent playlists that we put on Spotify! :)

We don’t have to tell you what an insane year 2020 has been, likely it’s been pretty unusual for you too!  Launching a new game IP, while we all had to work from home, was intense.

But it was incredibly rewarding. We experienced your insane level of appreciation, passion and creative engagement with our world, like  creating your own lore artifacts to unpack all the hidden mysteries of our universe! 

Whether watching the latest youtube videos from VALORANT Hub channel (the theories about the samurai outfit are delicious), covertly ‘observing’ lore theories on various discords (shoutout to @Cynprel, @KecMagik, @skit, @Cake we see you!) or enjoying all the beautiful fun character art on social media. You’ve kept us inspired and motivated to keep going throughout the year, and continue to expand on the rich universe that we have only begun to deliver.

Next year, we are going to start to delve more into the world of VALORANT.  We will start to confirm some (but not all) of the theories around the epic conflict between VALORANT and [REDACTED].   


THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

We'll start to explore deeper into Kingdom: What is this corporation? What’s with all the secretive bases and stuff? How does Kingdom have such a huge global presence in a world that is our own near-future Earth? How much of a mirror does this world hold up to our own modern day?

All along we will continue to bring you new maps (with EPIC backstories), new Agents (from places far flung….and closer to home), and other exciting new content that builds out and expands on the lore, and hopefully continue to inspire your own thoughts, theories, ideas and stories.

Happy End of Year and look forward to many more ahead!

—David Nottingham, Creative Director, and MANY, MANY MORE scattered across our team