The Valorant Lore: Story Explained [Updated]

The Valorant Lore started out as bits of information throughout the game, but now we start to get a clearer picture of what is happening. So let's take a look at the Valorant Story!

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Just what kind of a story is there in Valorant? | © EarlyGame, Riot Games

Valorant lore has expanded a lot. Here we'll take a look at what exactly is going on in the Valorant world, the overarching story, and important events timeline-wise starting from the beginning to today. Although all the Agents have their own story, the focus will be put towards more important Agents that have more important roles in the overall Valorant lore.

The First Light: The Start of Valorant's Story and Agents

The reason why the Valorant game exists at all is because of an event that happened in the game called The First Light. Valorant is based around our real world, and The First Light happened around 2039. This event created an element that may be familiar to you: Radianite. Some people who were exposed to Radianite obtained superpowers, and that's why our Agents have abilities!

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The First Light...the start of EVERYTHING | © Riot Games, Sir Jeppy

But not all Agents have the same amount of power. You may notice this in Killjoy, whose abilities don't affect her at all! Radianite was too powerful for the world to handle, so some people went ham with power (like Reyna), while others were humble. Because of this, 2 powerful organizations were created to make the maximum use of Radianite and the superpowered people called Kingdom and the VALORANT Protocol.

VALORANT Protocol and Kingdom: Valorant's Story Saviors

The Kingdom corporation is a power company that was created shortly after The First Light event. As time went on, Kingdom found out ways to use Radianite to their advantage to supply civilization with power! Along with that, they also used Radianite to create weapons, gadgets, and all sorts of tech-related stuff. Being afraid of rogue superpowered agents, they created a secret sub-organization called the VALORANT Protocol, with Brimstone and Viper as its leaders.

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Valorant's lore has both good and bad guys. | © Riot Games

Lots of people held grudge against Kingdom, the VALORANT Protocol sought them out. They helped keep rogue agents at bay like Phoenix, but sometimes they recruited them to the PROTOCOL, advancing to 19+ agents! These agents' purpose is to keep peace in the world, but nobody expected what would happen next...

Valorant DUELISTS Animation: Venice Spawns Ascent

In 2049, after 10 years from The First Light, Jett appeared in Venice planting some kind of bomb which we all know it's the spike. Phoenix was sent in to resolve the issue and in the first cinematic DUELISTS, we got to see the fight! Having a bad ending, the spike blew off and the Venice incident happened, which made a big chunk of the city rise in the air.

This chunk of land may be familiar to you because that is the Ascent map! After this incident, everyone was aware of what Radianite was capable of, Kingdom's stocks plummeted to the ground, and everyone was in search of Jett. What they weren't aware of though was that the Venice incident wasn't the Jett's fault they were thinking of...

Valorant DUALITY Animation: Mirror World and Mirror Agents

One day after the rise of Ascent, agents were called back to resolve another issue in the Bind map. A spike was planted and nobody wanted another Venice incident on their hands. Killjoy was defusing the spike, while Phoenix saw the enemy. Chasing him, Phoenix didn't expect to see an exact mirror replica of himself!

This was the biggest Valorant lore reveal of all time. The Spike's purpose is to steal Radianite, meaning that the attacking side is the Mirror agents, while the defending site is the original agents. We know this through small details scattered across social media and in-game: mirror Agents have depleted their Radianite resources, and they are lookingto steal it from our original world with the spike. That's how we know that the Jett in the Ascend incident was her mirror counterpart!

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Phoenix fights...Phoenix? | © Riot Games

After the fight, we can see that Phoenix doesn't know what is going on, while Viper's already in the clear about it. So still a lot of people are clueless about the mirror world. Although we kept it general about the main events, next up we'll take a look at some agents that have heavy Valorant lore implications.


Chamber: Valorant's Story Peacebreaker

When the Chamber cinematic was released, everyone was confused. While every agent is fighting their mirror counterparts, Chamber is working alongside his mirror version! But why is Chamber important to the Valorant story? Well, the VALORANT Protocol was searching for a way to reach that mirror world. While on this mission, Brimstone and Viper got trapped. Chamber was the one who helped them out of that trap, whereas he joined the VALORANT Protocol.

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Is Chamber actually evil? | © Riot Games

Although Chamber helped the VALORANT Protocol, even establishing a way to reach the mirror world, he isn't as innocent as he seems. The Fracture map was a research facility called the Everett-Linde research facility. This facility's purpose was to create a source with unlimited Radianite to help out the mirror world and the original world. Chamber and his mirror counterpart destroyed it. Why? We don't know, but this process killed many scientists and it killed a cause for the greater good and peace of the world.

Valorant Pearl Story: First Map Set in Mirror Earth [Theories]

We previously got teasers leading to Pearl through Ruben Pontes and Oran McEneff which you can read more about here. Simply put, they were scientists at Fracture, survived Chamber's ordeal, and traveled to Mirror Earth. Our agents also made a successful attempt at that, finding themselves in an underwater geo-dome. But why do they live like that and not above the water?

The truth couldn't be further than harsh. The Mirror Earth agents were stealing Radianite from our Earth, not for their own gains, but as a means to survive because the underwater dome runs on Radianite. Their Earth suffered catastrophic climate change, making them settle to live underwater by stealing our Radianite supply.

Although that's Pearl's main story, there are still some interesting key points that have to be mentioned. First off, the Valorant agents in Mirror Earth are known as the Legion. And they aren't hidden from the world, but they're praised as celebrities with their own comics and figurines.

Secondly, the Kingdom Corporation is known as the Kingdom Industries in the Mirror Earth. They work closely with a different company known as Atlas. Atlas has a private militia on demand which you can see in the cinematic above. Some speculate they've actually built the first teleporters to other worlds.

We know this because of the museum on Pearl's B-site which explains the whole timeline of events on Mirror Earth. It shows from their First Light to Atlas creating portals and the catastrophic climate change they've endured.

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The history of Mirror Earth! | © Riot Games

Another thing we should keep a close eye on is Ruben Pontes and Oran McEneff's story. Right now, they are fugitives in Mirror Earth, and we can even find Ruben Pontes' house on Pearl covered with police tape. The interesting part here is that the wanted posters refer to Oran McEneff as an "illegal alien".

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Oran is an...alien in Valorant's Mirror Earth? | © Riot Games

This is all we know about the Valorant lore story so far. However, if you are a lore maniac, we encourage you to save this article somewhere, as we are planning to update it constantly with new information. If you are looking for some nice fun facts about Valorant Agents, be sure to also check out these galleries:

Szymon Bielawski

I've been into competitive gaming and eSports since I was a kid. I started out in the local CS:GO scene and ended up performing at the international major tournaments like Hearthstone Masters Tour. The competitive gaming world discovered a new...