VALORANT
Evan Lahti: Despite
decades of developers
borrowing and
improving on each others’
ideas, it’s surprising that we still
often get hung up on ‘copycat’
games. And there’s no series
more sacred, more untouchable
than Counter-Strike on PC, an
FPS whose weapons and maps
mostly resemble what we
played 20 years ago. With
Valorant, we learned that not
only can Counter-Strike be
copied, but that it’s durable
enough as an idea to be
mutated and mixed without
diluting the essence of what
makes a high-lethality,
angles-driven team FPS so fun.
At first Valorant was a glossy
invitation to dust off those
mothballed Counter-Strike
skills; its weaponset is
practically untouched from
CS:GO’s. But it quickly became
its own thing, a remix of CS’
format with walls of vision-
denying smoke, healing, revives,
scout drones, a turret and
powerful ultimate abilities. It
all worked: the range of utility
abilities are harmonious with
the maps, and the characters
don’t eclipse the action. Even
teleporter fake-outs started to
feel novel to this CS purist.
Phil Savage: Counter-Strike has
always felt impenetrable to me- so heavily dependant on
learned knowledge of maps
and weapons and sightlines
that I never felt I had a chance
to catch up. Valorant’s main
appeal, then, was that it was
a lot like something I wanted
to try, but new enough that
I felt I wasn’t at a massive
disadvantage coming in.
And while I quickly took to
the pace and lethality of a
CS-like shooter, ultimately it’s
the characters and their
abilities that keep me coming
back. As Evan notes, they don’t
eclipse the action – it’s not
Overwatch – but they do give
you a specific skillset that helps
you find a place within your
overall team strategy. At first
their skills can feel
underwhelming, but Valorant
taught me to appreciate the
power of a subtle play that
nudges a match in your favour.
I felt incredible the first time I
used a smoke to disrupt an
enemy push, buying a few
seconds needed to let the bomb
do its job. And I love the way
abilities like Jett’s Updraft
create an added dimension to
the precise, measured
movement and gunplay.
Steven Messner:
Valhalla was a bit of
a surprise to me,
honestly. I expected it to be
pretty good, but I had no idea
that Ubisoft’s next Assassin’s
Creed was going to be such a
memorable adventure. What
matters here are the little
details – the numerous ways
Ubisoft listened to feedback
from Odyssey to make Valhalla
a much more inviting RPG.
Level-gating is gone, the
open-world doesn’t feel like a
checklist of boring activities,
and the combat has been
refined to include more depth.
It’s also the first time an
Assassin’s Creed story really
gripped me from beginning
to end. Odyssey’s storytelling
was often clunky and a little
obtuse, but Valhalla does a
fantastic job of exploring
Eivor’s relationship with her
adoptive brother Sigurd while
questioning the traditions of
Norse culture with a surprising
amount of nuance.
While the series’ transition
into a big, meaty RPG has been
a little clumsy, Valhalla makes
it all worth it.James Davenport: I knew
Valhalla was something special
when, as part of a sidequest, I
pulled an axe out of a Viking’s
skull. Important note: he was
alive and talking to me, asking
if I could help with his little
problem. The guy collapsed
and died immediately of course,
and a little XP notification
popped up to let me know the
quest was done with. That was
it. Stumble into a dying man,
pull out the painful jewellery.
Quest complete.
In another I told a girl
clinging onto a false symbol- the last leaf hanging from a
tree – that it doesn’t mean her
father was still alive. So I told
her to move on, then shot the
leaf down. Dick move, but I’m
a realist. Quest complete.
Valhalla is utterly riddled
with these odd encounters
rather than the usual
convoluted sidequests. It’s more
Red Dead than Elder Scrolls,
imbuing the old English setting
with a sense of life beyond the
main conflict. For the first time
in a while, a Ubisoft open world
doesn’t feel like a checklist, it
feels like a world.
ASSASSIN’S CREED
VALHALLA
BEST
MULTIPLAYER
BEST
RPG