AGENT ANALYSIS: FADE

What is your biggest fear? The rejection? The loneliness? Do your doubts and insecurities haunt your dreams? Are you afraid that, perhaps, you really do belong in the Bronze?

We all know fear. We’ve become familiar with it since childhood: the monster under the bed, a dark hallway at night, your mother keeping you waiting in line at the checkout counter. We’ve all tasted the sour, primal taste of fear, and felt the unsettling itch it leaves under the skin.

Now, fear has a name: Fade.

THE BOUNTY HUNTER

Before Fade was the personification of fear – before she was even Fade – she was an idea of game mechanics: recognition.

“During the decision of what to create for Agent 20, we knew we needed someone who could compete with Sova. He kind of holds a monopoly on recon in VALORANT, and we wanted another Agent who had similar strengths to him,” explains Game Designer Nick “Nickwu” Smith.

That left Smith with the simple task of focusing on a mechanic that relied on intelligence gathering while being significantly different from Sova – the only other Recon Agent.

Sova requires you to know the alignments of each map – those ideal places to place a Tracker Arrow and give your Initiators and Duelists the information they need to advance, while you stand back and defend the flank. He is the king of ranged reconnaissance. So, when he was creating an Agent that could compete with that, Smith decided to test a kit that focused more on to counter Sova’s range.

“The idea of a bounty hunter stood out from the start, because these guys use different types of intelligence gathering components to hunt their bounty. It’s much more intimate than shooting an arrow from somewhere very far away and relaying the information to the team,” Smith explains.

“I got the idea from deer hunting – tracking them, capturing them and then killing them,” he pauses and laughs. “I’ve never actually hunted in my life. I have no idea what it’s like. But it’s that ‘I know where you are, I’m going to corner you and then I’m going to catch you’ mentality that I wanted for Fade.”

Fade’s tracks were one of the first mechanics Smith explored. The goal was to track “rewards” in a way that was up close and personal.

“Because of the way the core mechanic cycle works in VALORANT, we needed Fade’s hunting coverage to focus on more than just a single enemy,” he explains. “By making Fade hunt only one opponent at a time, we allow the ‘bounty hunter’ theme to be followed, but when it comes to mechanics, it makes her a not-so-strong Agent. Tactically, you can’t put enough pressure on the enemy team – or alternatively, we’d have to make that Agent so powerful that killing the target would be pretty much guaranteed, and that’s a terrible gaming experience for those on the other side.”

The solution was to give Fade tracks for every enemy hit by her abilities and let them see their own tracks.

This gives her the chance to play with her prey. Will she follow her own tracks or someone else’s? Will she pass on this information to her team? Or will she just leave you hiding behind a corner?

“What we found from playing the kit was that when you play Fade, you feel like you’re collecting information, tracking and hunting people, and then executing them with that information,” comments Character Production Lead John “Riot MEMEMEMEMEME” Goscicki. “And when you’re the person that Fade is hunting, you go through a terrifying experience that creates a lot of anxiety. So we decided to draw on that feeling of what it’s like to play as and against that character. And that’s what led us to this darker, more sinister theme.”

WHEN NIGHTMARES BECOME REALITY

When developing new Agents, the team draws inspiration from many sources, but the main one is quite simple: people. The universal human experience that connects us all, regardless of what we believe, who we are or where we call home. Things like happiness, hope, dreams; anxiety, fear, nightmares.

But one side of that parallel evokes a stronger reaction. And that side is somewhat under-represented in the current Agents cast.

Apart from Omen, and possibly Yoru or Reyna, there aren’t that many “xXrev0lts69huexXx” Agents . In fact, most of the recently released Agents are pretty positive. Neon is endearing (even if she’s sarcastic), Chamber overflows with French charm and egotism, and KAY/O is a deeply loyal robot (as long as you’re not a Radiant).

After seeing Fade’s kit, it was clear to the team that they were creating someone a little darker.