VALORANT Neon Agent: Release Date And Abilities

Following some detailed leaks, the VALORANT Neon agent has finally been officially revealed by Riot, including the release date and abilities. Neon will be the 18th playable character in VALORANT and brings with her some fast-paced, dynamic abilities to challenge the likes of Jett. Want to know everything there is to know about this new agent? Here's everything you need to know about VALORANT Neon.

VALORANT Neon Agent: Background

Neon had been in the game files under the codename “Sprinter” for a hot minute as data miners around the scene pointed out on several occasions. In their regular blog post “state of the agents”, Riot Games gave the first official teaser of the agent, hinting towards their Filipino origin story. Moreover, we found out that they would be light and electricity-themed, giving us a brief tease of their shoes in the blog post.

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Soon after and due to an accidental leak by Amazon Prime, we quickly found out what the agent would look like, receiving the full art of the agent which Riot themselves later acknowledged on their own VALORANT Twitter account, giving us the uncropped version of the image.

While the art doesn't give away too much about the character, it looks like they will be moving rather fast, giving off inFAMOUS Second Son neon ability vibes.

On January 5th, Riot dropped another teaser of their character. In it, we can hear a voice who is likely to be Neon talk about a lost plushie and their personal connection to an unknown character by saying that they miss them. 

Then finally, on January 5, the official trailer for Neon was released, titled Spark.

VALORANT Neon Agent: Release Date

The Neon release date is January 12, as always coinciding with the start of a new Act. With the new year and Riot structuring their content schedule in Episodes and Acts, it is also the start of a new Episode, so perhaps even a little more content is soon to come in. 

In the past, agent launches could be slightly delayed so we don’t know for sure if Neon will be playable by January 12, though no evidence to the contrary exists either. As it stands, you should be expecting the VALORANT Neon Agent to be playable outside competitive on said date.

VALORANT Neon Agent: Abilities

Thanks to the above trailer, we know exactly what Neon's abilities will entail. The first major one is that she's the only character in VALORANT that can both sprint and slide, so although they're common mechanics in other first-person shooters, you need to play Neon to do it here.

She's also got what seems to be an improved version of Phoenix's fire wall. Rather than just being on one side, Neon can block off both sides, to create an electric-blue corridor. This can't be bent round corners like Phoenix's can, but does provide more cover overall.

Neon also has a stun/concussion grenade ability and although we haven't seen the effects of it on enemies yet, we're expecting it to be something similar to Breach's stun.

Finally, Neon's ultimate provides her with what is basically an electric laser beam from her fingers. We don't know how much damage this has, but every kill Neon gets with her ultimate gives her a speed boost. It's also confirmed that Neon is a Duelist, if you hadn't guessed that already.

It's safe to say Neon will give Jett a run for her money, but whether she'll take over that top spot without Jett's verticality is yet to be seen.