Bombshell: Everything we know about Valorant's next agent

Now that Valorant is officially out for anyone to play, it's time to start looking forward to what's coming next. Riot is treating Valorant like a living, breathing service game. That means new skins, battle passes, game modes, and maps on a regular schedule. That's all great, but the crown jewel of all updates is, of course, a new agent.

More agents in Valorant will mean fresh twists to the meta, more fun abilities to play around with, and new ways to use old agents. Riot has promised a new agent in every act (Valorant's name for seasons), each of which lasts a few months. With three acts to a chapter and two chapters per year, we can expect six new agents every year.

The studio has stayed tight-lipped on next season's agent, but some data-mining and a tease embedded in the game itself gives us a good idea of what's to come.

Is Valorant's next agent named Bombshell?

Riot has already begun teasing its next agent in an update video, but a silhouette isn't a lot to go on. How do we know the name Bombshell? It's mentioned in voice lines datamined Valorant. In a video by Hitscan, you can hear a few Valorant agents calling Bombshell out by name.

This is different from the codename that's seen several times in the game's code: Killjoy. Considering several other agents' codenames don't match their final agent name and Riot went to the trouble of recording voice lines for Bombshell, I think it's safe to assume that will be the name that sticks.

Who is Bombshell?

From what we've seen so far, Bombshell is probably a German engineer that specializes in robotics. It looks like Riot even left a hint for Bombshell in the Act 1 battle pass. One of the final unlocks is a player card called Vertraulich (German for "confidential") that seems to depict a bipedal mech and additional gadgets to its left and right.

Valorant data miner PlayerIGN has linked this hint to uncovered voice lines that reference the character's short height. They theorize that Bombshell might pilot the mech seen in the player card to reach the standard height and hitbox shape that every agent shares. It's a fun idea, but that doesn't quite match the silhouette seen in Riot's recent teaser. It's possible that the big mech could also be their ultimate.

What are Bombshell's abilities?

We don't know exactly how Bombshell's robotic specialties will be translated in-game, but there's a good chance that they will have a deployable turret. We can definitely see what looks like a turret in the battle pass player card, at least. Also interesting is a 3D model mined by PlayerIGN that depicts a small drone with sharp rotor blades.

Some other mined details include new electrical effects and animations that depict agents taking something off their heads. It's possible that this all links back to Bombshell, but it's important to note that datamined info could relate to other unreleased agents, whether they're real upcoming roles or scrapped ideas that will never make it into the game.

When will Bombshell release?

If Bombshell is indeed the next Valorant agent, we can expect them to arrive in Act 2. According to Riot's rough schedule, Act 2 should begin sometime in August or early September.