Riot Games’ new 5v5 tactical first-person shooter VALORANT has a very simple premise; assume the control of agents and either take over or defend the bombsites in the allotted time. Attackers aim to plant the Spike and let it detonate, while Defenders try to fight off the attacking side by all means necessary. Either side can win by wiping out the enemy team, as long as it all happens in each round’s sub-two-minute time limit. Once the Spike has been planted, however, defenders can only win the round by taking a full ten seconds to defuse it.
One suggestion that has been thrown around regarding VALORANT’s bomb defusing mechanic is the addition of defuse kits, similar to those used in CS:GO. In Counter-Strike, defuse kits bring the time it takes to re-wire the bomb down from ten seconds to five. In VALORANT, it also takes 10 seconds to defuse the Spike, but there’s no way to cut the time down, which could potentially leave a long enough window for the attacking team to stop the defuse.
Even though the Spike can be defused in two increments of 5 seconds each, the total time it takes is still 10 seconds, which could be a make-or-break for the winning team. Even if they have the necessary number of kills, the defenders could still lose the round due to not having defused the bomb in time.
The way this can be remedied is through defuse kits. These would be available to purchase before each round and would decrease the total time taken to defuse a Spike down to five seconds. This give the defenders more time to get the remaining kills, and decreases the chances of an attacker sneaking in and preventing a full defuse of the bomb.
It’s important to remember that VALORANT is still in closed beta, and this feature could potentially be added by the time the full game drops this summer. A defuse kit has many advantages and could potentially be a total game-changer, and could attract more new players to the game - especially CS:GO veterans.
VALORANT is currently in closed beta, and is only available on PC.
