Neon: Everything You Need To Know About Valorant's New Agent
"Valorant" is getting a new agent as Riot Games looks to shake up the game with even more exciting mechanics. The free-to-play FPS – which could be getting a mobile release in the future – gets at least one new Agent for players to pick up every Episode of the game, and Episode Four: Disruption will see Neon join the "Valorant" squad. Just like most Agents in the game, Neon is from a specific city around the world: Manila.
Neon's announcement video gave fans plenty of insight into her personality as she unpacked her room. It even showed her interacting with Sage, another "Valorant" agent. Lore-wise, it seemed like the two could have known each other prior to the creation of the "Valorant" team. She brought along a picture of an adorable dog and stuffed animals.
"Electric" was a pretty common theme among everything, from her character's electric blue color scheme to the music she listened to. It also described her abilities, which were all charged with electricity — literally.
Neon's abilities
Players that enjoy speeding around the map will really enjoy Neon's abilities, as she centers around fast-paced gunplay and movement. She hits servers on January 12. 2021, and her reveal trailer showed off her moves prior to her release, which included a slide that may be a free ability in her kit similar to Jett's floating capabilities.
In the trailer, Neon was shown moving at a quicker pace than other Agents after using an ability that left a trail of sparks behind her. She also created two walls that blocked off lines of sight in one direction, giving her and her teammates a way to get onto a site while blocking enemy vision. This wall looked similar to Viper or Phoenix's walls in the game, since Neon went in and out of the walled area. The wall didn't appear to be a hard barrier that blocks an area off, like Sage's wall.
The trailer also showed off Neon's stun grenade. Combined with her zappy movement, this could be used to create space for her teammates and break apart enemy lines. Her ultimate ability also appeared in the trailer. As Sage revived her, Neon's body glowed as an electrical current ran through her, and she essentially began running around and zapping enemy health lines that were in her line of sight.
While Neon's abilities and gameplay looked promising, her representation as a Filipino character was equally as wonderful.
Neon's character design
Many of the Agents in "Valorant" have homes around the world, and Neon was the first Agent to come from Manila. The voice actor for Neon, Vanille Velasquez, spoke out on Twitter about how wonderfully Riot designed Neon.
"Any way we can get 'salamat Riot' trending? ... I have never seen a Filipino character in a video game this carefully created before. Hearing Tagalog on a AAA title is a massive win for [Filipino] representation," the voice actress tweeted.
She went on to say that there was a lot of thought that went into Neon's character, and that she was happy to see such love and diversity in "Valorant." A Filipino artist, Ylona Garcia, also worked to create the music for the trailer, and fans couldn't get enough of the catchy song.
On YouTube, fans were quick to point out that the reveal trailer held a lot of tidbits of Filipino culture that the average viewer may not have picked up on, and that nothing felt stereotypical or offensive. All in all, fans seem happy with Riot's representation of Filipino culture.