How does Valorant’s defuse mode compare to CSGO and CoD?

Valorant is, without doubt, one of the most exciting prospects in esports and gaming right now, with the March 2020 gameplay preview sending fans into a frenzy.

Since the preview released, fans have been trying to glean every possible bit of information from it, whether its the different characters’ ultimate abilities or how the economy system works in comparison to Valve’s CS:GO.

So far, Defuse is the only game mode that has been shown, and there’s no clear indication that there will be any more so far, but fans will no doubt be waiting to see more from Riot Games’ first foray into the first-person shooter genre. But how exactly does Defuse work?

We know already what the core mission of the Defuse mode is, since it works so similarly to the likes of CS:GO and Call of Duty’s Search and Destroy so it already feels like a familiar game.

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However, we’ve now got more details about how exactly using the bomb – or spike, as it is called in Valorant – works in Defuse.

Having watched the gameplay preview, the spike appears to take 45 seconds to detonate, with the player defusing the bomb cutting it very fine to pull off the defuse. The defuse itself appears to take around 7.5 seconds, with no indication of a defuse kit like in CS:GO being available from the gameplay we’ve already seen.

(Timestamp 1:33 for mobile viewers)

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell from the preview how long it takes to actually plant the spike if you’re on the attacking side. The 45 seconds detonation and 7.5 seconds defuse mirrors that of Call of Duty’s Search and Destroy, so it’s possible planting is the same and will take 5 seconds.

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Alternatively, in CS:GO it takes 3 seconds to plant the bomb, which gives attackers a decent amount of time to plant and set up their hold.

Players have also theorized that spike defuse progress can be picked up and accumulate over time – for example, you can defuse for 3 seconds, drop the bomb, then pick it up and finish off the final 3.5 seconds.

Though there is no proof of this, it would definitely bring about a new layer of intricacy to the gameplay, and the purpose of the split bar below the spike indicator at the top of the screen isn’t yet known, so it could indicate some truth in this.

Riot Games appear to have taken note from some of the biggest FPS games in the world to help them make Valorant, and based on the hype around the game, the work is going to pay off.