The developer of the tactical shooter Valorant, Riot Games, has accidentally revealed a new agent in advance. The latest addition is apparently called “Killjoy” and has some interesting and certainly extremely annoying abilities for opponents.
Who is the agent? So far, nothing is known about Killjoy except for her name and abilities. There is no background story yet, but she is apparently an inventor, tinkerer, or engineer – similar to Heimerdinger in LoL or Torbjörn in Overwatch – and could be from Germany.
Her abilities include completely new mechanics for Valorant, revolving around building technical devices that can even act autonomously, meaning without Killjoy’s intervention, once they are placed.
In the list of all agents in Valorant, she would be number 12.
Where does the leak come from? The information comes from Riot itself. According to dotesports, the developers had an info page about the agent online for a short time and even showed a video of her abilities. Although it is no longer available, a fan has re-uploaded the video without the audio track:
Killjoy – The New Agent in Valorant?
This is what Killjoy can do: Like all agents, Killjoy has three abilities and an ultimate.
- Alarmbot: Killjoy equips an Alarmbot and throws it. The bot disguises itself after a short time and then guards a small area. If an opponent approaches the area, the bot jumps at them and explodes, causing damage and increasing the damage taken by the target from all sources by 100% for a short time. Holding the equip button recalls the bot.
- Turret: Killjoy sets up a turret that guards a 180° cone in front of it and fires at opponents. Holding the equip button recalls the turret.
- Nanoswarm: Throws a grenade that remains at the target location. Upon activation, the grenade creates a nanoswarm that deals damage to opponents within a radius. The activation apparently works similarly to the gas of the recently buffed Viper.
- Lockdown: Sets up a device that, upon activation, locks opponents in a large radius for 8 seconds. The device can be destroyed. Once the time is up, the opponents are apparently heavily slowed down.
Since this is a leak, none of the abilities are officially confirmed. However, the video looks as if everything is already finished and functional. It is thus quite possible that Killjoy will appear like this.
How strong will she be? So far, the abilities sound extremely strong and it seems that Killjoy can secure and hold areas quite easily on her own. Especially as a defender, she may almost become a must-pick in the team.
Unlike Reyna, Killjoy could find herself well in an A or even S tier on the tier list of agents in Valorant if she appears like this.
When will she be released? So far, there is no date for her release. Although the abilities are already known and seem final, Riot will likely still be busy with balancing.
Currently, Riot also has bigger problems with the ranked system that for some time nobody was really responsible for. It may be that this also stands in the way of Killjoy’s development and must be resolved first.
