Project A, the first-person shooter teased by Riot Games last October, finally has a name: VALORANT. Today Riot Games revealed gameplay details, screenshots, videos and PC specs for their new FPS. They also announced when the game would be playable, and it's sooner than many dared to hope: coming summer, VALORANT goes live.

VALORANT is a free to play, character-based shooter that will emphasize tactical prowess. Matches are played in a 5v5 format, with one team playing as attackers and the other team as defenders. It's a Best of 24 system, so the first team to win 13 rounds emerges victorious. Defenders have 30 seconds to set up before the attackers are released. Each round lasts 1 minute and 40 seconds.

At the start of each match, players lock in which character they want to use for the entirety of that match. During the rounds players earn money which they can use to buy guns—all characters have access to all the guns in the game.

While all characters do have access to unique abilities, Riot stresses that these only serve a tactical purpose to complement the gameplay. The action in VALORANT is high, with fights not lasting long: almost all weapons kill instantly with a headshot, and most rifles finish their opponent with just three to four bullets.

The video clip below shows one of the characters racking up four kills, using a smoke bomb to force the opponents in favorable directions for her.

The design of VALORANT mixes the realistic gunplay of popular shooters like CS:GO and Call of Duty with the stylized, more toony feel of games like Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch. As can be seen on screenshots below, the map design follows this trend. Each point has multiple access routes with tunnels and alleys giving the attackers multiple ways to approach their opponents. The defenders, at the same time, have access to high ground and special holding angles, allowing them to prepare against the attackers' strategy.

Watch: a full round of gameplay

Let's get technical

In shooters, more so than in any other genre, having little delay and a smooth gameplay experience is pivotal. A single frame loss can be the difference between victory and defeat in a game where just a few bullets take down an opponent. Aware of this, Riot Games is making some pretty hard commitments. VALORANT's servers will all run at a 128 tick rate, meaning the server sends out updates about the gameplay 128 times per second. At the same time, Riot states that at least 70% of all players worldwide should be able to pay on less than 35 ms ping, with players in major cities experiencing even less ping.

In order to combat cheating, VALORANT will have use League of Legends anti-tamper system. This system is complemented by an all-new, Riot-owned anti-cheat system called Vanguard. Wallhacks are countered by a 'fog of war' system, meaning that players only become visible on a map moments before they get in the line of sight. VALORANT has server-authoritative games, meaning that rule-bending hacks like increased walking speed or teleportation are automatically countered by the server itself.

Riot also posted the PC specifics they tested VALORANT on, resulting in the following list:

More images

Images via Riot Games