Gameplay Journal Entry #2: Valorant

Valorant is a free multiplayer first-person shooter that places emphasis on team composition and character abilities. Released June 2, 2020, Valorant was built using Unreal Engine 4. In terms of graphics, physics, and audio, Valorant does a great job of utilizing all three of these components, especially physics and audio. The graphics are nice but nothing wowing, however the game really relies on the physics of certain abilities, espically projectiles, and relies even more on audio. The game incorporates a great audio while walking and includes controls to walk quieter to avoid detection from the enemy team.

Unreal Engine 4 is a powerful game engine developed by Epic Games. Other popular games that utilize Unreal Engine 4 include Fortnite, Ark: Survival Evolved, and Final Fantasy VII Remake. This excerpt from Henry Lowood’s Debugging Game History: A Critical Lexicon explains game engines:

“As the term has developed since the early 1990s, game engine encompasses the fundamental software components of a computer game. These components typically include program code that defines a game’s essential “core” functions, such as graphics rendering, audio, physics, and artificial intelligence, although the components vary considerably from one game to another.” (Guins)

In term’s of Unreal Engine 4’s environments, I think creators have plenty of tools to create exciting and beautiful scenery, as seen in many of the games created using this engine. In terms of Valorant, the environment is aesthetically pleasing, as well as including lots of functionality such as doors and windows to interact with and objects to stand and jump onto.

Works Cited:

Guins, Raiford, and Henry Lowood. Debugging Game History: a Critical Lexicon. The MIT Press, 2016.