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Valorant is getting the long-requested team deathmatch mode (TDM) as part of the Episode 7 update. As the name suggests, players will be divided into two teams of five, and thrown into frenetic gun battles to rack up 100 kills, across three new maps. The game mode launches June 27 packaged with patch 7.0, and in celebration, Riot Games has also dropped a cinematic that brings back MaxBot, the combat training robot. The robot was previously relegated to being a vacuum cleaner after serving its master agents through countless training sessions, and now exacts revenge by having them endlessly fight each other and endure what it went through.
Team deathmatches are a staple of FPS games, with Valorant following mostly similar rulesets, including fast respawns and weapon loadouts, which are chosen at the start of a match. There’s no in-game economy/ buy system in this mode, so players don’t need to worry about saving money as they would in the casual or competitive modes. There is no need to purchase abilities either, as they would be made available to you as cooldowns; ultimates, however, can be charged overtime through kills and picking up special orbs peppered across the map. The goal is for your team to get as many kills as possible within 9 minutes and 30 seconds, which itself is split into four stages. This is where things change.
While weapons can be changed during pre-match or upon respawn, when a new stage begins the loadout will be upgraded automatically. This prevents players from running around with an overpowered weapon the whole game. Valorant’s TDM update introduces three new custom maps — Piazza, District, and Kasbah — reserved solely for this mode. Sprinkled around those maps are Weapon Spawners — in fixed locations — which usually offer more powerful firearms, albeit they will be scaled depending on what stage of the map you’re on, so it isn’t too unbalanced. If you’re in a pickle, go look for Recovery Orbs, which grants your operator a buff that restores Health and Shield over six seconds.
“Our goal when designing Team Deathmatch was to create a combat-centric experience where players can showcase their creativity and mechanical skill. This mode allows players to compete with fewer constraints in an environment that rewards bold plays and fast reflexes,” Kyle Powell, Game Designer said in a prepared statement. “We’ve streamlined many of the aspects of Valorant to keep you always in the action and focused on finding the next fight.” Besides some hype during the first couple weeks of launch, it’s impossible to see TDM overtaking Valorant’s larger competitive modes. Similar to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, this could function as a good warm-up zone to polish your aim, and is a welcome addition.
Valorant’s Team Deathmatch mode will be out June 27 as part of the patch 7.0 update, on PC.