Valorant‘s current Act is nearing its end, and Riot have revealed what to expect from the next one. Episode 2 Act 2 kicks off on March 2nd, introducing a brand new character with some very cool abilities. Astra is a controller who goes into a strange space realm to place stars which she can use to activate various abilities. I reckon she has one of the best designs for a Valorant character we’ve seen yet, and her kit sounds a whole lot different to anything the game has so far.
“Ghanaian Agent Astra harnesses the energies of the cosmos to reshape battlefields to her whim,” reads her character bio. “With full command of her astral form and a talent for deep strategic foresight, she’s always eons ahead of her enemy’s next move.”
Astra’s abilities all revolve around placing stars across the map, which she can then pop with different abilities. Her C skill creates a Gravity Well, sucking enemies in and applying the vulnerable status effect when it explodes. Her Q is called Nova Pulse, and concusses players caught in it. Then her E ability is Nebula, a smoke that looks like a pretty purple and gold galaxy.
Her ultimate, however, is probably the most interesting of the lot. It allows Astra to place a wall that cuts across the entire map, blocking sight and bullets, and heavily dampening audio. It sounds pretty powerful, and it’ll be interesting to see how players will use it. It honestly sounds a bit scary to me, I rely on audio so much in Valorant – please don’t take it away from me.
“With Astra we wanted to make a controller that was thinking about the whole map. Her global presence was there right from the beginning,” game designer Jordan Anton said in a press release. “We wanted her skill expression to be about gathering information and turning that into a plan, where the execution phase is less about precisely targeting a grenade throw and more about seeing if your read on the enemy came together how you hoped.”
Astra makes her Valorant debut on March 2nd, followed by a new battle pass for Act 2 the day after.
If you haven’t played Valorant in a little while, the new Act seems like a good time to jump back in. 1) to try this cool new character, and 2) to have a go at the new Gun Game-style mode, which is a chaotic and excellent time.
