Valorant devs explain how Indian mythology inspired new agent Harbor

In a recent Twitch interview, the Valorant Character and Narrative dev team spoke about upcoming agent Harbor, discussing the progress in ensuring the Indian agent was an authentic and realistic representation of the culture and heritage.

Valorant has made a name for itself with how developer Riot Games has been able to capture and bring to life different cultures through each new Agent that is brought into the game. New hero Harbor is the next example of this, with members of the Riot Games development team detailing how the character has been brought to life, why they chose now as the time to introduce an Indian agent, and what sort of research was done in order to flesh out Harbor.

Ryan Clements – one of devs on Valorant’s  character and narrative team, spoke during the October 17 dev team stream about why they “weren’t interested in the Western concept of an adventurer and treasure hunter.”

“We wanted something different”, began Clements. “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.”

Clements then added that, “obviously he is a big, muscular force on the battlefield but we wanted him to be able to come in there and to do things that are much more about the academic as well.”

For the character team, it was also important that Harbor was a reflection of the heroes that are seen in Indian culture. “When you look at Indian myth and Indian literature, their heroes are much more multifaceted than traditional Hollywood action heroes…You have this amazing tradition that we wanted to honor and celebrate.” 

Expanding on Clements’ points, developer John Goscicki broke down the original concept for the new Agent and how the team decided that now was the right time to bring an Indian hero to Valorant.

“When we started the exploration for Harbor, India had been coming up over and over again. There’s tonnes of history, culture that should be celebrated and looked at when it comes to how we create agents and we represent all of the players around the world and so it was more of a matter of when are we going to make an Indian agent not if we’re going to make one.”

To ensure that Harbor was as authentic as possible, Goscicki revealed that there was “a tremendous amount of research” that went into bringing the new Indian Valorant agent to life.

“We watch a lot of movies, we read books, we look up as much stuff as we can online. 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 is officially set to release as part of Episode 5 Act 3 on Tuesday, October 18. He joins the game alongside all new content in the latest battle pass.