Valorant Devs Explain Harbor Indian Origins

Ever since its release in 2019, Valorant has been adding new agents regularly, each with their own identity and unique abilities. The latest agent to join Riot Games’ FPS is Harbor, a Controller bending water to disrupt his enemies and protect his teammates.

Each Valorant agent has their own culture and comes from a specific part of the world. Brimstone and Viper both come from the United States, Killjoy is German, Phoenix is from the United Kingdom, and Chamber is French. The 21st agent joining Valorant, Harbor, is from India. 

Harbor, whose real name is Varun Batra, is a former task force agent. He gained his water-bending powers after a mission in Mumbai, where he came into contact with a powerful artifact. During the October 17 dev team stream, Senior Narrative Writer Ryan Clements and Senior Game Producer John Goscicki opened up about the inspirations behind Harbor’s design.

“We weren’t interested in the Western concept of an adventurer and treasure hunter,” said Clements. “We wanted something different. We wanted something that felt right for engaging from India so that’s why we really wanted to lean into this special operative, military guy that is an expert and has integrity.”

Harbor is the first Valorant agent coming from India. The Valorant team researched the country’s culture and mythology to create a hero that could be as representative as possible. 

“We watch a lot of movies, we read books, we look up as much stuff as we can online,” explained Goscicki. “We hired an academic consultant to talk to. We met with a lot of Indian writers around the office and so it’s just about coming from a place of, we need to learn and know more to respect the culture and the history and the players themselves. So when they’re picking this agent they are seeing parts of their culture represented in them.”

Harbor joined the Valorant roster on October 18, as part of Episode 5 Act 3. He is the fifth Controller of the game, alongside Brimstone, Viper, Omen, and Astra. Their goal is to prevent the enemy team from having a clear line of sight on their teammates, forcing the enemy team into choke points for their allies to take them out. To do so, Harbor packs powerful water abilities, allowing him to send waves rolling forward with Cascade, create a sphere of shielding water with Cove, cast a wall of water with High Tide, or summon a geyser pool with his ultimate ability, Reckoning.

Valorant is a free-to-play FPS available on Microsoft Windows.

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