The newest agent to be added to VALORANT has been revealed, and will be a welcome sight to fans of robots and CS:GO. On June 17, Riot Games and the VALORANT team officially revealed KAY/O, an agent with a unique ability set that utilizes grenades, ability suppression, and even a battle royale style revive.
KAY/O looks to knock out Radians by taking away their abilities. (Image via Riot Games)
KAY/O’s Abilities
KAY/O’s basic abilities include a flash grenade, an explosive grenade, and a thrown suppression blade. His flash, called FLASH/drive, explodes after its thrown but has two variants. Right-clicking to throw causes it to cook and explode quickly, while left-clicking cooks it for an additional 1.6 seconds. The explosive grenade, called FRAG/ment, explodes ‘multiple times’ and does the most damage to closer opponents. It also sticks to the floor (but not walls).
The thrown suppression blade, ZERO/point, sticks to the first surface it hits before detonating. Anyone caught in the blast radius has their abilities suppressed for a short amount of time.
Lastly, his ultimate, NULL/cmd, empowers him and creates large energy pulses that emit from his location, which also suppresses opponents’ abilities. He also gains Combat Stim and if he’s killed while in his ultimate state, he enters a “destabilized state” that allies can revive him from.
What else we know about KAY/O
The trailer showing the KAY/O reveal paints a picture of the buff robot’s backstory, and of the fragmented world VALORANT takes place in. The footage shows KAY/O fighting in a war-torn global hellscape and facing off with an especially sinister-looking Reyna. The phrase “TIME TO KILL SOME RADIANTS” flashes on the front of his face. Radiants are the group of Agents with supernatural abilities as a result of the First Light event: Reyna, Jett, Phoenix, Astra, Yoru, Sage, Skye, and Omen. The Duality trailer released earlier this summer hint that perhaps KAY/O was created by Killjoy to fight Radiants from a mirrored Earth.
KAY/O’s suppression abilities and potential revive should have drastic impact on the competitive VALORANT meta, with his mix of abilities making him viable in either the initiator or duelist role. Players can clear out corners with their flash, and use KAY/O’s knife to prevent other players from using their abilities to retake sites or deny spike plants.
KAY/O is expected to make his in-game debut on June 22, at the start of VALORANT Episode 3.
