Hello again everyone!

When I woke up this morning I was met with the pleasant surprise of seeing David Nottingham, Creative Director at Riot, answering some questions and chatting with the people over on the VALORANT Lore // Art Discord.

Although I’ve already done a quick summary in this Twitter thread I thought I could make a more thorough one in this post. I’ll leave a link to each Discord message for full context, so join the server if you want to see them for yourself.

Without further ado, I present you with a beautiful wall of text!

Things further confirmed

A couple of things that were already known were revisited and reconfirmed, namely:

• Breach is a congenital amputee, meaning that he was born without arms (message)
• Skye is from the town of Nimbin in Australia (message)
• There are to main agent categories: Radianite tech users and Radiants (message)

About the universe and the maps

The VALORANT universe is seen in two different ways. First is the universe in-game, more restricted in order to work nicely with the core gameplay. This is different in the cinematics and other media outside the game, where there is more liberty when depicting lore elements. (message)

This can be better seen in the Duelists cinematic where Jett is able to clear a canal with her dash and jump to the roof of a building, which cannot be done in-game. Despite this, the agents and the universe are represented in such a way that stays true to the concept. (message)

Focusing more on the map side, David talked about how the maps are a great vehicle for storytelling and a focal point for the universe. They work hard on each map to make sure it convey a story. (message)

We got some information regarding why the maps are devoid of people when the agents appear. The first answer was quite simple, the inhabitants of each map do not like being around a gunfight. The second one gave us confirmation on something that has been theorized for some time, the maps are evacuated before the agents arrive. (message 1, message 2)

About the agents: Cypher, a bit of Astra and a smidge of Omen

As we previously knew from Cypher’s voicelines Nora is a person of great importance in his life:

“Nora… I will see you again.”

David developed on this, confirming that they have a history together, longing for something. The question proposed by David, “A person loved and lost?”, supports the suspicion of Nora being a dead relative of Cypher, be it his wife or daughter. (message)

In a later question Cypher’s loss of his family is brought up again with the following voiceline:

“I must survive to protect my family. I can’t lose them. I can’t feel that pain again.”

David comments how this loss is a very important part of the watchdog’s life (message)

We also asked about his eyes, more specifically if the mechanical blue eyes we see in Cypher’s mask are implanted into Cypher or if they are simply a part of his mask. No concrete answer was given for this one, but David shared an excellent drawing of Cypher without his mask. (message)

After joking about the motives the Cypher in the drawing has to hide his face given how good he looks (which I 100% agree with), he mentioned that the watchdog definitely has something to hide. (message)

Between the previous two messages David dropped the line “Eyes are the window to the soul” (message). I am unsure of how to interpret this: a generic wisdom or relevant to the lore? I’ll leave that up to y’all.

Sprinkled in later is a message with the more or less common theory that Cypher is a robot. David’s answer was straight to the point, saying that “Cypher is not a robot”. (message)

Moving on to the Astra part, one of her voicelines reveals that she knows who Cypher is:

“Why, Cypher, like, you think I don't see you. I know who you are, man”

David commented how the Moroccan is a mystery and how Astra knows something not only about him, but about the other agents as seen in her sketch book. (message)

Although we wanted to know more about the Ghanaian agent David was quick to redirect the conversation to something else, telling us that she will play a bigger part in the lore (message). Yeah I’m pretty hyped about this not gonna lie.

There was also a comment about Omen which’s answer’s only created more mystery surrounding the wraith. What a surprise. The question was what we all want to know, “What happened to Omen”. The reply was short ”It is a heavy question with a heavy answer. Multilayered” (message). What does this mean? Unfortunately I can only speculate and that is out of the scope of this breakdown.

When speaking about the agents as a whole we are reminded of the fact that although the VALORANT Protocol is a group, each person within it has a mind of their own, which explains the hostility between some of them. (message)

Regarding Radianite

Whenever there is a talk about lore Radianite comes up, and this time was no exception. First was the confirmation that the tech in the VALORANT world is powered by Radianite. (message)

When asked about the possibility of having agents not as closely related to Radianite as the current ones (Radianite tech users and Radiants) David responded stating that the current narrative is largely focused on Radianite and there is no plan to change as of right now. (message)

The placement of Radianite boxes was also brought up. The weird locations in which some of them are is due to bad organization on Kingdom’s part, similarly to explosive barrels in other videogames. (message)

A recurring topic in lore discussion is whether the ultimate orbs are canon. This was also asked and the answer was akin to it not being relevant (message). So now you know, the ult orbs are just part of Gameplay™.

On fan projects

Great appreciation was shown towards fanart and the creativity surrounding the agents and the universe, and David said although he can’t ensure Riot’s green light of the Agents of Romance fangame (which you can learn more about in Cynprel's and Bee's socials!) he can’t wait to play it. (message 1, message 2)

The future of lore drops

For the final part of the breakdown we will take a look at the hints David gave us in relation to how they plan to reveal lore in the future.

The aim of the VALORANT team is to lay out small parts of the lore but not just through teasers, always expanding on ways of adding to the lore while pushing the possibilities of storytelling of VALORANT play style. David promises more content is coming, with a “meaty drop not too far in the future” (message 1, message 2, message 3)

Conclusion

There is one aspect I would like to remark, which is the differences between lore and gameplay. This is something that results in confusion very frequently and that David’s comments are great for this debate: the abilities and maps we see in cinematics (or outside of the game in general) do not necessarily reflect to perfection what we see in game because it gives the team room for a more extensive creative process.

Same thing applies for a lot of gameplay elements. Not everything in the lore can be translated completely into gameplay, so a compromise must be reached. This compromise Can results in overlooking part of the lore for the core mechanics of the game.

That being said, with today’s answers and yesterday’s Breeze teasers we have a lot of content to be examined, and I hope this breakdown help you all in this process. Again, join the VALORANT Lore // Art Discord to get the full context and discuss lore more in depth.

I hope you all enjoyed this read and do tell if you want to see more like this! See you on the next one.