What is Valorant lore? A quick guide to the Valorant Protocol

One thing that Riot Games is great at is constructing rich lore behind their multiplayer games, and Valorant is no different. Despite the fact your in-game goal is just to plant a bomb or protect your objectives, the story behind Valorant is much more complex. There's espionage, impossible minerals, superpowers, multiverses, and more.  

What is the Valorant Protocol?

After the cryptic First Light event, an unknown organization founded the Valorant Protocol. Here, powerful agents from around the world come together to protect the world. After all, as an organization, the Valorant Protocol is supposed to conduct secret missions to protect Earth from radianite. But what is radianite?

What are Radiants and radianite?

Some time in Valorant's version of Earth's history, scientists discovered an element they named radianite. Radianite proved to have astronomical abilities to propel technology forward.

However, with more time and exposure, radianite also began giving people unusual capabilities. Some people even gained superpowers. The world classifies these super-charged people as Radiants. For example, Reyna's Empress powers only exist because she's a Radiant.

Related: Why Isn't Reyna Used in Valorant Competitive Esports?

Despite radianite's mysterious origins and supernatural influence, it became the go-to clean source of energy on Earth. Radianite also powered some of the most high-tech creations and weapons, such as Killjoy's turrets. All Valorant agents are either Radiants or they use radianite technology.

What is First Light?

After years of radianite use, a mysterious event only known as "First Light" happened. The exact event is shrouded in mystery (at least, as far as players know). Bare minimum? First Light, whether it was destructive of not, altered Earth irrevocably. For example, shortly after First Light, there were massive changes in governmental structures, technology, science, and, most notably, more Radiants appeared than ever before.

Related: VALORANT Radiant Entertainment System Skin Bundle: Preview, Skins, Price, Release Date and More

First Light brought the Valorant Protocol into being. Knowing the mysterious and possibly dangerous effects of radianite, the Valorant Protocol now vows to diffuse any possibly threatening radianite events.

What is Omega Earth in Valorant?

To complicate the Valorant lore, there is also another Earth: Omega Earth. Meanwhile, the original one fans know is called Alpha Earth. In true comic book fashion, Omega Earth is another planet from an alternate dimension– similar to Alpha Earth, but not quite. WFor example, Omega Earth also experienced First Light and someone created the Valorant Protocol there, too, except on Omega Earth its called the Valorant Legion.

What's particularly different between Alpha and Omega Earth, though, is that their Valorant Legion eventually became public knowledge. Also, the Valorant Legion now travels to Alpha Earth to steal some of their supplies of radianite for themselves. So that's another crisis and conflict that the Valorant Protocol has to keep an eye on.

If you want to also learn about in-game Valorant stats to know these agents from their lore to their pick rates, go check out Tracker Network's Valorant Insights.