Shroud says VALORANT seems easier to play due to less visual map distractions

Over the past few days, people who have had the privilege of playing Riot Games’ new FPS, VALORANT, are saying that the game feels easier to play compared to other titles of the same genre. Shroud, however, thinks that the reason for this is due to a lack of visual distractions on the map.

“I think it’s very similar to CS, but CS is very distracting,” Shroud said during a recent stream. “There’s a lot of places where people can disappear, and there’s a lot of distracting objects and a lot of bullshit on the map.”

The 25-year-old explained that the time-to-kill between both CS:GO and VALORANT are “pretty much one-to-one,” but the differences lie in the map design. According to Shroud, there isn’t anything on the walls or other unnecessary elements that could catch your eye. The agents are much more visible and are easily targeted by players because of this.

A good comparison he made was with CS 1.6, which was the predecessor of CS: Source and CS:GO. Back in the day, 1.6 featured minimal map accents that let the character models stand out from the background, allowing players to snap onto enemies.

Now, CS:GO has plenty of different map accents that look great and add a feeling of depth, but are also a bit distracting and can prevent players from taking down an enemy as quickly. Players can also remain still in certain parts of the map and effectively blend in while other people are hunting around for kills.

VALORANT is also still in beta, which means there’s a good possibility that this isn’t exactly how the game will look when it finally releases this summer. But from what we’ve seen so far, things look promising for Riot’s first foray into the world of FPS.