Valorant's Killjoy is like Overwatch's Torbjorn - Here's Why That's Not A Bad Thing

Valorant's next agent, Killjoy, is arriving with Act 2, bringing the kind of toolkit that seems strangely familiar.

As we noted in our introduction to the character, the "German genius" has more than a little bit of Overwatch's Torbjorn in mind. Here's why that's fine by us.

Killjoy Should Mix Up Valorant's Meta

At the time of writing, Riot's tactical shooter is in a good spot in many ways, but with a lack of maps, a new agent makes all the difference.

I've lost track of how many times I've run the same defensive strategies on each bomb site, but adding a turret-wielding character allows for much more interesting plays. Distracting enemies using your Agent to lead them into the turret's path, or utilising a roaming defender strategy to get behind attackers and block off an avenue for a retreat has the potential to catch enemies entirely off guard.

Then there are the teleporters, which can now be covered by Killjoy's turret, too!

Thankfully, Killjoy should be just as lethal on offence. Being able to lock down enemies when planting, or draw an enemy's fire with the Alarmbot could be just what the game needs. If we're honest, it's just nice to have an agent that doesn't throw either a coloured ball of something or create a wall - something we have plenty of already.

Now, take all this with a pinch of salt since we haven't been able to play with the character yet, but while Valorant is already great, this addition has definitely rekindled my interest in the game.

Anyone worried about the character's similarity to Torbjorn should rest easy - Overwatch's massive roster ensures that it covers almost every possible character, role and ability archetype, so there's bound to be some crossover.

In fact, there are a couple of Overwatch characters (or at least their abilities) that would feel great in Valorant.

Imagine a Reinhardt style character that's capable of holding an entire team behind their shield, or a healing-focused sniper akin to Ana that offers longer range healing than Sage.

Finally, we'd love to see a character analogous to Doomfist, capable to unleashing a ground pound to clear a bomb site!

Have an opinion on this article? We'd love to hear it!

Join the conversation