KAY/O Valorant Agent 16 Revealed – Catches up to Cypher in Trailer Deaths

Valorant
June 18, 2021
Kieran Lee

KAY/O is the new Valorant agent revealed for Episode 3. The product of Killjoy’s experiments is set to fix the post-plant meta, with abilities aimed at disabling other Agents utility and zoning tools. Riot’s new trailer gives us a few hints about KAYO’s tool kit. Most notably, the new trailer doesn’t kill off Cypher first, nor is he the random victim of poor positioning. Thanks Rito.

Here’s everything known and unknown about Valorant’s newest agent.

KAY/O Valorant

Valorant Agent KAY/O Reveal

The new agent release has had a prolonged tease by Riot Games, as Killjoy took over the official PlayValorant Twitter account during Summer Game Fest and posted her tweets. It all built up towards a backstory of Kay/O being a robot designed by Killjoy, and became sentient as she was having fun at Game Fest.

A short teaser at the end of the Tweet storm, showcased the initial agent activation.

It was already speculated greatly that we will get an agent that disables player Agent abilities like KJ turrets, Cypher’s tripwires or Raze’s Boombot. It seems the new agent does just that as part of his toolkit. The actual reveal trailer doesnt hint too much about his abilities, but early data mining has also revealed new coding for “Suppression”, the name of the debuff which can grant KAY/O assists.

Here’s the official KAY/O Agent Reveal Trailer:

With four different type of classes which all agents will fall into; Controller (4), Duelist (5), Initiator (3) and Sentinel (3). The next two agents will likely be a new Initiator and Sentinel to balance out the agents. However, with the new agent probably being able to counter other agents, KAY/O is leaning towards being an Initiator.

His ability to counter other agent abilities has likely been developed in response the community’s outcry against the rampant post plant meta recently. Killjoy and particularly Viper’s extremely strong post plant abilities had tipped the balance of the game, making it near impossible to defuse the spike without chasing such agents at times half-way across the map. The introduction of KAYO will improve the game’s balance without any huge nerfs to post plant agents in future patches.

Many early speculations already talked about a link between a subtle easter egg on Breeze and Kay/O’s ability to deactivate enemy abilities. These speculators turned out to be correct.

Cypher doesn’t die first this time around

It’s become a meme tradition to always have Cypher abused in every single Valorant trailer. This time around, Kay/O is on the receiving end of bad beats, as he keeps getting abused on entry. Luckily he rolls back to try and fail again several times, nearly catching up to Cypher in total trailer deaths.

Still, Kay/o dies 10 times in his teaser, but more importantly Cypher gets mowed down only at the start of the video. The rest of the video attempts to have on-screen deaths of Agents catch up to Cyphers 30+ death totals in trailers.

Regardless, a lot more needs to be done for us to forgive Riot for massacring our boy every time. Lets enjoy this well put together meme trailer by Youtuber LEO.

 

Episode 3 Act 1’s release is set to be a big one on the 22nd of June 2021. KAY/O should be available on release day.

Finally, Valorant has also planned the release of the “Give Back Bundle”, a bundle of skins voted by the community. The bundle will feature one sidearm, smg/shotgun, rifle and sniper/machine gun. Judging from community feedback, it is highly likely the Give Back Bundle will consist of the: Reaver Sheriff, Vol.1 Spectre, Ion Operator and Reaver Vandal. Half of all proceeds from the sale of weapon skins from the bundle will head towards the Riot Games Social Impact Fund.