Riot unveils “mind blowing” new agent Astra

A brand new agent for a brand new season. Cosmic Astra will enter the battlefield in less than a week and fans are already excited.

Riot Games have unveiled a brand new agent Astra less than two months after announcing stealth agent Yoru. Astra will become the 15th agent in VALORANT and will arrive as part of Episode 2 Act 2.

As usual Riot Games let established community figures get their hands on Astra pre-launch. "If you have a big brain then you will love this agent my friends," said Method's Noizeeh. Meanwhile Team Liquid's Mendo called new agent Astra "mind blowing".

What can Astra do?

While not much is known about new agent Astra's backstory as of yet, we do know she is Ghanian and that she uses her abilities via cosmic energy.

In the trailer Astra wield cosmic orbs to perform what looks like one of three skills. The first is a concussion ball which can be planted and activated at will. The second is a mini-black hole which sucks agents towards it, and the third is a smoke. Meanwhile her ultimate creates a huge cosmic wall which appears to block vision.

According to well-known data miner PlayerIGN none of Astra's abilities deal damage and her ultimate is permanently available. PlayerIGN also added that her ultimate blocks bullets and that it comes with seven "orb" charges. This however, has yet to be confirmed by the developer.

February 28th Update: Team Liquid Mendo has released his guide to Astra on YouTube prior to the release of the character next week.

Riot Games had teased new agent Astra on social media two days earlier on February 25th.

New agent Astra to arrive in Episode 2 Act 2

Episode 2 Act 2 is set to launch on March 2nd. As part of the update Riot Games is introducing Astra on top of three new skin lines; Prism III, Polyfrog and Cavalier.

"This time, we took inspiration from the frog on Split (Froggie Hat!), which the community fell in love with during Closed Beta. With Prism III, we wanted to give players who don’t usually buy skins a chance to get their hands on the clean crispness of the Prism set," said Preeti Khanolkar, VALORANT's Game Producer.