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Valorant's latest agent Astra is all set to release on 2 March along with the Episode 2 Act 2 update, and developers recently opened up about the inspiration behind the design of his cosmos-themed agent.
According to Astra's character bio, she harnesses energy from the cosmos to reshape the battlefield based on her desires. Additionally, Astra has entire control over her astral form while also boasting a massive talent for deep strategic foresight. The thought from the developers while designing Astra was based solely on creating an agent who can detect an enemy's move even before it has been made.
Being a controller in Valorant, Astra's abilities allows her to place various traps on the battlefield, which can be remotely triggered to catch an unsuspecting enemy off guard. However, while talking about the inspiration behind Astra, the developers had quite a lot to say.
Valorant developers talk about the inspiration behind Astra
When questioned about the inspirations or notable concepts behind the designing process of Astra in Valorant, John "Riot MEMEMEMEME" Goscicki, Producer - Character at Riot Games, said,
"African Futurism was a huge inspiration for us when it came to designing Astra’s thematics, once that element was brought into her development all the pieces naturally fell in place. Ascending above the map to place her “Stars” is such a huge part of her kit, and there are amazing cohesive representations of African Futurism X Space that we were able to pull from."
Adding to Astra's Ghanaian nationality in Valorant, John Goscicki added,
"From there it was also about making sure there was enough of a real world grounded element to her personality and character design. To make sure those grounded elements were represented properly we worked with a consultant from Ghana on the details."
Apart from this, Valorant's Designer at Riot Games, Jordan "Riot Wrekz" Anton, spoke in detail about the space-theme used to design Astra's visuals in Valorant. The Designer said,
"The space theme was a big inspiration for her game design, especially the gravity well. We thought it would just be the perfect fit for a character who places and acts on stars. It was a fun chance to add something that felt like it wouldn’t make sense on anyone but Astra. The gameplay came together as a unique and versatile ability that gives her a different approach to situations than our other agents."
Having said this, it feels safe to say that Valorant's developers are not just limited to world elements when it comes to designing new agents for the game. it can be believed that the developers might implement similar ideas for future map-designs as well.
Nevertheless, whether that happens or not matters extremely little to the players as everyone in the community is waiting eagerly for 2 March 2021 to arrive so that Valorant's Episode 2 Act 2 can release along with the new agent, Astra.
