Valorant Agent 21 Harbor: Indian Gaming Community celebrates the Indian agent with ‘The New Wave’, Riot’s first community event: Riot Games today hosted an experiential community event to mark the debut of VALORANT’s first ever Indian agent, Harbor a.k.a. Varun Batra, at the Famous Cine Building, in Mahalakshmi, Mumbai. VALORANT is one of the most popular free-to-play first-person shooter games developed and published by Riot Games. Harbor will be available in-game from 19th October onwards.
Valorant Agent 21 Harbor
Under the spotlights and too much fanfare, the launch event was packed with thrilling immersive experiences, including a real-life replica of Harbor’s motorbike from the trailer. A number of well-known Indian influencers, including Aditya Sawant (a.k.a. Dynamo) and Ujjwal Chaurasia (a.k.a. Techno Gamerz), made appearances at the event.
Riot also invited VALORANT pro-teams to the event where players from Global Esports, Enigma, and VLT participated in an exhibition match with the influencers. Harbor’s abilities and gameplay were demonstrated live for an audience of over 150 attendees.
The evening concluded with an electrifying performance by ARB4, Mangal Survarnan, and Tienas, the producers and musicians behind “RAJA”, Harbor’s desi hip-hop & Carnatic fusion backing tracks.
Adarsh Gupta reacts
Speaking at the event, Ashish Gupta, Marketing Lead for India & South Asia at Riot Games said, “After many months of hard work, we are thrilled to finally introduce Harbor to the world! We’re humbled by the love and support we’ve received so far from the community in India and beyond. We’re sure Harbor is going to be a star both in and out of the game. We are also very excited to host our first Riot event in India and look forward to bringing more exciting activities and events to the country!”
The launch event was live-streamed on the following platforms and is now available to watch:
Talking about the inspiration to introduce a new agent, Ashish Gupta, Lead Marketing, India and South Asia, Riot Games said,
“In creating Harbor, our development team approached it from as many angles as possible to ensure authentic representation! This team made sure to work with consultants from India to gather information about Indian traditions, values, pastimes, food, drink, etc. They watched a lot of Indian cinema and read books as well. They also worked very closely with Indian Rioters, including myself, to understand traditions, values, and music.
Our writers worked for hand in hand with Indian Rioters to help shape Harbor’s voice and demeanor and use of the Hindi language. We are yet to unveil details of the VO artist behind Harbor but will do so soon. We urge you to look out for it on our social channels. Indian culture is beautiful and complex. And hope we have captured some of that in Harbor and that our Indian players can see some of themselves reflected in him – someone who is tough, confident, and passionate.”
To celebrate the arrival of Harbor, Riot will be revealing a series of unique digital content over the next few weeks. So, stay tuned.
