Leaks suggest Riot's new competitive shooter, codenamed Project A, is called Valorant

(Image credit: @ValorantTheGame)

Leaked images of what is alleged to be Riot Games' upcoming tactical shooter, Project A, have revealed what might be the game's real name: Valorant.

As spotted by Polygon, a number of "fan" accounts have popped up on Twitter, all purporting to have information about the game. For instance, Twitter account ProjectAOnline, revealed Project A's alleged official name, whilst ValorantTheGame has shared a number of leaked screenshots showing off Valorant's environments.

Another depicts an unofficial image of a character named Sage, a sentinel with the power to erect a barrier, slow enemies down, and heal and resurrect fallen teammates. The same image also gives us a peek at two more potential characters – Brimstone and Viper – and suggests there'll be ranked and unranked matches, with this mode possibly entitled "Bind".

What really piques our interest, however, is evidence that Riot recently registered the domain playvalorant.com, along with rumours the company is also behind the recently created Twitter account, PlayValorant. Unused, it's already clocked up almost 50,000 followers at the time of writing.

The shooting game – which isn't based on League of Legends – had a revealing announcement back in October 2019. We got a generous amount of gameplay footage for an unnamed project still early in development, as well as plenty of key details, including confirmation that Project A is a competitive shooter taking place in a futuristic Earth where characters each have their own unique abilities.

Riot said at the time that Project A is being headed by a team of veteran developers and seeks to "evolve" the tactical shooter space with style, creativity, and improved technical fidelity. The latter point is emphasized in the announcement trailer, and Riot seems confident in its ability to fix many of the technical issues prevalent elsewhere in the online shooter genre. 

As if this isn't enough proof of Riot's ambition, check out this actually real collaboration between League of Legends and French fashion house Louis Vuitton.

Vikki Blake
Weekend Reporter, 12DOVE

Vikki Blake is 12DOVE's Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.