The brand new Episode of Valorant is arriving soon, but fans have already been made aware of the brand new character coming to the game.
Yoru has been leaked for several weeks now, but now Riot has unveiled all of his abilities within the game.
Here's a closer look!
Who Is Yoru
Yoru is the brand new agent that players will be able to unlock and play during the release of Episode 2 Act 1.
Riot has noted Yoru as the following:
Yoru is an Infiltrating Duelist, using an array of tools to re-position himself, or create fakeouts. Yoru players will be lurking around the map, causing chaos, and getting frags
Abilities
Riot has provided us with descriptions of Yoru's abilities.
Check them out below!
C - Fakeout - EQUIP an echo that mimics footsteps when activated FIRE to activate and send the echo forward ALT FIRE to place an echo in place USE the inactive echo to send it forward
E - Gate Crash - EQUIP to harness a rift tether FIRE to send the tether out moving forward ALT FIRE to place a tether in place ACTIVATE to teleport to the tether's location
Q - Blindside - EQUIP to rip an unstable dimensional fragment from reality. FIRE to throw the fragment, activating a flash that winds up once it collides with a hard surface in world
X - Dimensional Shift - EQUIP a mask that can see between dimensions. FIRE to drift into Yoru's dimension, unable tobe affected or seen by enemies from the outside
Developer Questions
Riot has also provided a QNA with some general questions in regard to Yoru's development.
Here are some keynotes:
What were your goals when designing Yoru?
“When we started talking about the goals for this Agent we knew it was time to shake things up in Valorant. The idea of “Stealthly Infiltration” is something we toyed around with for years, but could never fit in the game. We felt that if we started from the ground up, we could create an Agent that revolved around the idea of “Stealthly Infiltration” in some way.
With that in mind we also wanted Yoru to be an Agent that could create some really HIGHmoments throughout the game. The kind of rounds where if you pull everything off correctly you feel like the greatest player ever.
The team has been super stoked to get this guy in players’ hands, he is definitely going to cause some disruption within the game.” - John “Riot MEMEMEMEME” Goscicki, Product Lead - Characters
Any unexpected challenges or novelty stories you'd like to share when designing Yoru?
“Yoru was a lot of fun to work on, for a bunch of the team he is the kind of character we all grew up with. At one point our concept artist had the idea that he is so tough he walked around with a spiky lollipop, I remember going into a review, he pulled up the image and goes ‘Ok just imagine this guy is so tough he doesn’t care about his mouth”. I hope one day this lollipop comes back, but in the meantime that always colored the way I view this guy… he really just doesn’t care.’ - John “Riot MEMEMEMEME” Goscicki, Product Lead -Characters
What did you take inspiration from / any notable concepts you wanted to convey with Yoru?
“After we felt good about the gameplay goals for this Agent, we started discussing what the experience playing Yoru would be like. Oftentimes you find yourself as the Solo player, setting stuff up for your team without them.
Given that we took inspiration from the rebel bad boy archetype, the kinda guy you love to hate, something about him makes you want to fix him, but you really shouldn’t. As his concept started forming we were also thinking about what elements evoke this archetype. There is a material called Ferrofluid that can form into these beautiful yet aggressive spikes. We used that as inspiration for how his powersource could form.” - John “Riot MEMEMEMEME” Goscicki, Product Lead - Characters