V A L O R A N T
VALORANT AGENT : FADE
What
is it you fear most? Is it rejection? Loneliness? Do your doubts and insecurities
haunt your dreams? Are you afraid that maybe you really do belong in Bronze
after all?
We all know
fear. We learn it at a young age: The monster under the bed, a dark hallway at
night, mom leaving you alone in the checkout line. We’ve all tasted the primal
sour of fear and felt the haunting itch it leaves under your skin.
Now fear has a name: FADE
THE BOUNTY HUNTER
Before Fade was the
embodiment of fear—before she was even Fade—she was a gameplay idea:
reconnaissance.
“When deciding what to make
for Agent 20, we knew we needed someone who could compete with Sova. He sort of
has the monopoly on reconnaissance in VALORANT, and we wanted another Agent
that has similar strengths,” explains Game Designer Nick “Nickwu” Smith.
That left Smith with the
simple task of narrowing in on a gameplay fantasy that relies on information
gathering while feeling meaningfully different from Sova, the only other
reconnoiter.
FADE |
Sova requires knowing
lineups for each map—those sweet spots for the perfect site-to-site Recon Bolt
to give your initiators and duelists the information they need to push while
you stand back and defend their flank. He’s got recon from afar on lock. So
when Smith was designing an Agent who could compete, he decided to try a kit
that felt more localized to counter Sova’s range.
“The idea of a bounty hunter
stood out from the beginning because they use all sorts of
information-gathering components to hunt down their bounty. It’s a lot more
personal than shooting an arrow from somewhere really far away and relaying that
information to your team,” explains Smith.
“I had the idea of hunting
deer—tracking them down, trapping them, then making the kill,” he pauses and
laughs. “I’ve actually never been hunting before. I have no idea what it’s
like. But it’s that mentality of ‘I know where you are, I’m going to lock you
down, and then I’m gonna get ya’ that I wanted for Fade.”
Fade’s trails were one of
the first mechanics Smith explored. The goal was to track “bounties” in a way
that felt up close and personal.
“Because of how VALORANT’s core gameplay loop works, we needed
Fade’s hunting footprint to be broader than just honing in on one enemy,” he
explains. “If you hunt just one opponent at a time it’s really strong
thematically with the bounty hunter approach, but when it comes to gameplay it
means you’re not a very strong Agent. Tactically you cannot exert enough force
on the enemy team—or alternatively we’d have to make it so powerful that you’re
almost guaranteed to kill that one person, and it becomes an awful experience
to play against.”
The solution was to give
Fade trails on every enemy hit by her abilities, and to let them see their own
trails.
It gives Fade the chance to
play with her prey. Will she follow your trail or someone else’s? Will she
relay this information to her team? Or will she leave you alone cowering behind
a corner?
“The thing we discovered as we played the kit was that as the person playing Fade, you feel like you’re gathering information, tracking and hunting down people, and then executing them with that information,” Lead Character Producer John “Riot MEMEMEMEME” Goscicki shares. “And then on the flip side when you’re the one being hunted by Fade, it’s an anxiety-inducing, terrifying experience. So we decided to lean into that feeling of what it’s like to play as, and play against, this character. And that’s what led us to the darker, edgier thematic.”
WHEN NIGHTMARES BECOME REALITY
When developing new Agents,
the team draws on inspiration from many sources, but the main one is simple:
people. The universal human experience that connects us all, no matter what we
believe, who we are, or where we call home. Things like contentment, hope,
dreams; anxiety, fear, nightmares.
But one side of that
parallel evokes a stronger reaction. And that side is a bit underrepresented in
the current Agent roster.
Outside of Omen—and arguably
Yoru or Reyna—there aren’t that many “xX420edgel0rd69Xx”
Agents. In fact, most of the Agents released recently are pretty upbeat. Neon’s
caring beneath her snark, Chamber’s insanely
French charming and egotistical, and KAY/O’s a deeply loyal
robot (as long as you’re not a Radiant).
After seeing Fade’s kit, it
became clear to the team they were making someone a bit darker.
“The bounty hunter fantasy
was so crystal clear that all the narrative work sort of just fell into place,”
recalls Narrative Writer Ryan “Pwam” Clements.
Clements and Narrative Lead
Joe “ParmCheesy” Killeen pitched a few different ideas for Fade’s thematic
fantasy, but one stood above the rest: living nightmares.
(DON’T LET HER LOOKS FOOL YOU, FADE SPENDS HER FREE
TIME READING WITH OMEN WHILE HE KNITS)
Nightmares presented an
interesting opportunity as a power fantasy. We all have them, they cause deep
rooted fear, and it’s a unique source of power for VALORANT.
“The way we integrated
nightmares into Fade’s kit made a lot of sense with the way we all felt playing
against her in playtests. It was this high stakes, anxiety-inducing experience
when you got tagged by her trails, and we wanted to keep that feeling throughout
her design,” Smith explains.
In addition to the unique
power source, nightmares and Fade’s edgier thematic meant she has a much more
unique color palette compared to the rest of the roster.
“The hardest part of
designing new Agents from a concept art perspective is keeping their color
palettes unique. All of the basic colors have been taken already, and we need
to figure out color combos that feel unique while still being readable in
game,” shares Concept Artist Konstantin “Zoonoid” Maystrenko.
“Since we decided on her
being the nightmare lady, we wanted to keep Fade’s colors more toned down and
leaned more heavily into greys and blacks. But black is a difficult color for a
competitive game, as it doesn’t provide as much contrast and readability with the
in-game environment,” he continues.
Apart from Fade’s color
palette, Maystrenko wanted to give her a modern, stylized outfit. The idea he
settled on was urban fantasy. A lot of fantasy in modern media is based in
fantastical realms full of fae, elves, and dragons, but there aren’t as many
sources of representation for someone burdened with such a powerful magical
ability who also grew up in an inner-city.
So he asked himself, “How
would she act? What would she look like? How do these nightmare powers manifest
in the way she represents herself?
(MAYSTRENKO TRIED TO STRIKE THE RIGHT BALANCE
BETWEEN AN APPEALING AND EDGY DESIGN)
As Maystrenko and Clements
were locking in the living nightmare fantasy for Fade’s thematic, Smith began
implementing this into her gameplay.
“I was thinking about ways
to introduce a lot of fear and anxiety in Fade’s kit after we had decided on
that being her thing,” Smith recalls. “Most of Fade’s kit is more
localized and up-close, but her ultimate, Nightfall, is a lot more broad. It’s
less about making individual enemies feel targeted and operates much more like
a standard Initiator ult, similar to Breach’s. It provides for a lot of
interesting gameplay opportunities for how it applies the trails and makes
opponents deaf.”
Sound is incredibly
important in VALORANT. You can hear enemies rotating, rushing, or reloading. It
can be the thing that saves you from certain death—or the thing that guarantees
victory. Not being able to hear enemies puts you at a tactical disadvantage,
and this became the perfect opportunity to inject even more fear in Fade’s kit.
“With a lot of other ultimates in the game, you can still tell if your opponents are rushing you down if you’re hit because they’re making noise. But when you lose the ability to hear it’s like... well shit I don’t know,” Smith adds. “And then Fade has your trail and knows your position on top of it, so it makes you anxious. With that fear comes the opportunity to create more misplays, which is something she uniquely brings to the roster.”
EVERYONE EATS FOOD
“We have a goal on VALORANT
to be unapologetically global. The world is full of interesting and amazing
people, and there’s no shortage of creative ideas, stories, and inspiration to
pull from in every country,” Goscicki shares. “A lot of people in Turkey play
VALORANT—like, a huge amount. And in the same way we saw an
opportunity to make another recon Agent, we also saw the opportunity to make a
character that Turkish players could potentially relate to.”
(FADE’S HETEROCHROMIA IS INSPIRED BY TURKISH ANGORA
CATS)
There are things about Fade
that should stand out as clearly Turkish at first glance. The nazar
boncuğu is a symbol common in the Mediterranean and is used to ward
off the evil eye, a curse brought about by a malevolent look. And the design
can be seen all over Fade, from the pendants on her clothing, to the ring she
wears.
But there are some
surprising additions the team wasn’t aware were part of Turkish culture at the
start.
(EARLY EXPLORATION OF FADE’S FIRST-PERSON POV)
In Turkish culture henna
signifies sacrifice: Sacrificing your single life to join your spouse’s family,
your personal life to join the military, or even an animal sacrificing its life
to provide food. Fade is no stranger to sacrifice. She deals with peoples’
darkest fears and most upsetting thoughts to wield her nightmarish powers while
sacrificing her own sanity and comfort.
“Many of our Agents have
tattoos. It’s not exactly a meme with players, but it’s one among the concept
artists,” Maystrenko laughs. “VALORANT uses a first-person POV, and so we need
to get creative to express character uniqueness with players. Tattoos or skin
markings are one of the clearest ways to do this. So when we learned that henna
is common and popular in modern Turkey, it was an obvious choice to include.”
“Turkey being Fade’s country
of origin worked out in a really lovely way because, as the different elements
began to take shape, there was a lot of cultural resonance we noticed,”
Clements says. “We worked closely with the Rioters in our Turkey office and
they informed us of the deep, profound respect to dreams in Turkish culture and
superstition. Dream reading and dream seeing are longstanding cultural
practices in Turkey, and it just fit so perfectly with this nightmare-wielding
bounty hunter that is Fade.”
Now, we’re not saying that
every single player in Turkey is an edgy goth mommy with henna who uses her
nightmare powers to hunt down people in Istanbul’s criminal underbelly. Maybe
you’re a crazy cat lady instead.
“Istanbul is the cat capital
of the world. And cat culture is not just a Turkish thing. It’s universal.
Everyone loves cats!” Maystrenko said. “We wanted to add some nods to that part
of her life in her visuals without it being so in your face that she just became
the cat Agent.”
“We wanted to build this
creature out of the things she loves and sees,” he continues. “Her nightmares
blend with the things that aren’t dangerous in real life, but in her nightmares
everything becomes something that can kill you. We tried to make it sort of
abstract so it wasn’t immediately obvious. At first glance it looks like some
creature that came from hell, but in reality it’s just two cats.”
All of these things came
together beautifully in her visual effects.
“I thought a lot about the
art style for Fade’s ultimate VFX, and how best to represent her and her roots
in it. It started out as a straightforward henna style pattern, but it didn’t
look quite right. It was very old-fashioned looking, so it sort of looked like
wallpaper,” explains VFX Artist Guillermo “Giggy” la O’. “There are nazars
within the effects—you’ll actually see a lot of eyes, but some of them are Fade
herself. And her Prowler cat is also present. I took all of these things and
used flow of the henna patterns to connect them so it’s less hardcore and more
soft.”
And if that’s not enough
cats for you, yes, those are toe beans on the bottoms of her boots.
And there she is in all her
nightmarish gothy glory: Fade. Tenacious, terse, haunted. It can be easy to see
the bounty hunter who wields such a terrible and frightening power and assume
she has evil intentions. But does she, really?
“When people look at Fade and
then ask me if she’s evil, I sort of take that question personally,” Goscicki
explains. “Growing up in the metal scene, I think there’s often a stereotype
that it’s a bunch of blunt, grungy, intimidating assholes. But when you’re on
the inside of that scene, you know everyone’s a fun-loving, goofy crowd. They
just choose to express themselves differently than the societal norm.”
Goscicki continued, “I think
Fade’s the perfect example of how you appear at first blush isn’t always going
to be representative of who you really are inside. I just hope that players get
to see that other side of her as well.”
Comments
Post a Comment