Valorant's April Fools' dating sim is real, and you can play it right now

Allow me to introduce you to Bee, the lead developer of Amorant. They have a collection of signed Valorant merch in the background, including a relatively flat-looking Tactibear and framed, signed pieces of fanart. We're chatting about the recent VCT circuit, where Bee and their team finally unleashed Amorant upon the world. My focus, however, is on the two, huge cardboard cutouts of Phoenix and Sage that they somehow managed to get from Texas all the way to London, then Paris. "With customs you just check it like a regular bag. You just say 'hey, that's two cardboard cutouts, there's an airtag in there, it's labeled as 'waifus,' as you can see on my phone." I start to laugh. "I had to label it with something!"

All of this for a Valorant dating sim that, for many, lived and died on April 1, 2021. I remember writing up the Agents of Romance 'reveal,' and have followed Bee's project since its inception (I remember Radiants and Romance!). To see them take it to Champions - the FPS game's biggest tournament - and get their own booth is amazing. Almost five years later, a tiny indie project that I expected to disappear is very much alive and kicking.

I played the VCT version of the demo before catching up with Bee, and it's everything my inner fan-fiction demon hoped it would be. Cast as the Valorant Protocol's new janitor, you're thrown into the fire (literally) face-first when the ever-lovable Phoenix accidentally sets the kitchen ablaze when trying to bake a cake for second-in-command Viper. The serpent herself catches him in the act, storming off and leaving you to pick up the gooey, sugary pieces (also literally). You're offered several dialog options to try and temper the now distraught Phoenix, whose confidence is knocked further when he overhears Viper lamenting about his hot-headedness to Brimstone.

The demo I played is around ten minutes long, but the full thing is quite a bit bigger. It received "super positive reactions" at Champions, Bee recalls. "We had such a big mix of people who had either never heard of us and had no idea who we were, then people who have been following us for years that were like 'oh my God, you guys actually did it. I can't believe you're here!' Then there were people who were like 'I thought you guys were kidding.' I feel like the people who got it got it, and the people who didn't were introduced quite abruptly, but the reactions were overwhelmingly positive."

But, as Bee says, Amorant isn't a "traditional dating sim." Setting its Valorant roots aside, where most romance games see you pick a character and "schmooze" them incessantly, Bee stresses that Amorant is "an actual story experience where there are romantic options, but it's more 'this is why you should like this character' not 'hey, you should get this character to like you.' It's definitely a friend system. The only thing the romance might get you is maybe an alternative splash art and a couple of lines of extra dialog. All romantic options are clearly marked as well - if you want to hold hands, I won't stop you!"

To really make the agents the focus, each of the eleven launch characters (up to and including Killjoy) have their own story track. "For Cypher's route, for example, we're planning on doing an Ace Attorney-style detective story and we want the final chapter of that to be a turnabout, which means entirely new artwork and mechanics that aren't necessarily in the game right now," they tell me. "For Brimstone, we're playing a DnD session, so we want to completely change the art style - we want [the agents'] player characters to be entirely different to their in-game sprites." As a result, "what we end up wanting in our hearts takes time," so it means that we won't see every agent at launch - but don't worry, later characters' tracks are already in the works.

"I know a lot of people are waiting for their favorite agent to drop, but just because they aren't getting their own fully fledged story yet doesn't mean that they're not going to be in the game, perhaps sooner than you expect. We already have sprites for agents that we aren't going to see for a long time, Neon and Fade in particular, but they'll still be involved with other agents' stories. We have a breakroom area where you can interact with agents in very short stories - we will give you the crumbs before you get to the meat."

What struck me with Amorant, however, is its authenticity. When I praise Phoenix's depiction and design, my comment elicits a smile from Bee, who, it turns out, is his writer. "I'm gonna be the first to admit that I'm a 30 year-old person, I do write fan-fiction," they laugh. "I've got two 80-page Valorant fan-fics, ignoring the other ones I've got, plus Amorant - come at me. We're well beyond the cringe point here. The iceberg has left the glacier!" We dissolve into a fit of giggles.

"Authenticity means a lot to me," they say when they've recovered. "I did a lot of research not just playing Valorant but listening to Phoenix's voicelines. As I was writing, I was asking myself 'do I hear this in Afolabi [Alli, Phoenix's VA]'s voice?' And if I do, that's the right direction." They also cite their step-dad's English heritage as a smaller inspiration, as well as various TV shows.

"For the other agents, we have specific roles in our team called Culture Consults, especially for Sage, and we're really lucky that her route is written by [people of Chinese heritage]. We try to really make it respectful and make people feel seen because, especially in a game that's a love letter to these characters, it needs to come from a place of authenticity. Or it'll fall flat with the target audience."

But Amorant does anything but fall flat. As mentioned, I've had my eyes on this project for a long time (shakes fists at clouds and reminisces over the good ol' days), and now that I've got my hands on it, I can't wait to see what's next. With the Amorant demo out today, October 13, we reminisce together about the original article I wrote in 2022, and how, while they want to hold hands with Cypher, my eyes are firmly trained on Viper.

"We didn't think we'd get this far - we're still kind of like, what just happened?" Bee laughs. "The biggest takeaway is, for anyone who sees this and thinks 'I wish that could be me,' it could be! I've met people I'd have never met otherwise and have friends around the world; I stood next to the 2XKO demo in Paris and made an ass of myself and it still worked out for me. So just be a little cringe and follow your heart - let it happen."