This week, Riot Games will add a new agent to its tactical shooter Valorant. Vyse, the 26th character players will be able to control, brings more of the game’s signature style and inventive gameplay to players. After teasing the agent on social media in the lead up to the Valorant Champions esport competition, Riot fully revealed Vyse on August 23. It won’t be long till you can try her toolset out for yourself, but while you wait here’s everything we know about Vyse, including her backstory, abilities, and release date.
When does Vyse release for Valorant?
Good news! Vyse joins the roster as part of Valorant Episode 9, Act 2, which releases on August 28 at 9:00 a.m. EST. That means you only have a couple of days before you’ll be able to test out the latest agent for yourself.
What is Vyse’s backstory?
As part of her reveal, Riot dropped a cinematic titled “All Paths End Here” that gives us some insight into who exactly Vyse is. In the short video we see a team of current agents led by Jett embark on a mission in South Korea to take down a mysterious new combatant. That combatant is, of course, Vyse, who manages to hold her own against the strike team thanks to a series of abilities like laying traps and summoning metal thorns out of nowhere. Before the battle gets out of hand, Omen suggests they talk, hinting that Vyse will join the Valorant protocol.
The cinematic doesn’t reveal too much about the mysterious masked agent. We do hear her talk and she sounds American, so maybe she has some history with Viper, but only time will tell. The cinematic does make the new agent out to be a cold and calculating force of nature, one that Valorant is lucky to have on its side.
What are Vyse’s abilities?
Vyse takes on the sentinel role in Valorant. Agents in the sentinel role typically have a toolset that focuses on defensive play and supporting the rest of the team. Vyse will become the sixth sentinel in Valorant, joining Killjoy, Cypher, Sage, Chamber, and Deadlock. Vyse’s skills center around manipulating metal, sort of like Magneto from the X-Men. Here is the full list of Vyse’s abilities.
- Arc Rose: Equip an Arc Rose. Target a surface and fire to place a stealthed Arc Rose, or alt fire to place the Arc Rose through it. reuse to blind all players looking at it. This ability can be picked up to be redeployed.
- Shear: Equip filaments of liquid metal. Fire to place a hidden wall trap. When an enemy crosses, an indestructible wall bursts from the ground behind them. The wall lasts for a brief time before dissipating.
- Razorvine: Equip a nest of liquid metal. Fire to launch. Upon landing, the nest becomes invisible. When activated, it sprawls out into a large razorvine nest which slows and damages all players who move through it.
- Steel Garden (ULT): Equip a bramble of liquid metal. Fire to send the metal erupting from you as a torrent of metal thorns, jamming enemy primary weapons after a brief windup.
Vyse’s toolset positions her as a great agent for zone control and laying traps for opponents seeking to flank you and your team. With abilities that blind enemies or activity on command it really seems like Vyse will thrive on letting your opponents walk into traps that turn them into fish in a barrel for your teammates.
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