Valorant introduces KAY/O, a killer robot who silences enemy abilities

First teased as nothing but a disembodied head, Riot has finally revealed the latest agent coming to Valorant—a lean, mean, robot killing machine named KAY/O.

Revealed in a new trailer this week, Valorant's latest agent is all about removing your opponents advantages. His main ability is a throwing knife that sticks to walls and silences enemy abilities in a set radius. Yes, that does make him similar to Apex Legends' Revenant, who is likewise a robot that can throw ability-suppressing projectiles, but the rest of KAY/O's toolkit helps him stand out from Respawn's skeletal assassin.

KAY/O's ultimate builds on this silencing ability, emitting pulses of suppression energy. This effect also powers up the bot with combat stim, and if he's downed in this state, allies will be able to come and revive him. His other two abilities are a flash and frag grenade respectively, with the latter sticking to walls and exploding multiple times on detonation.

KAY/O's anti-ability abilities make total sense in the context of Valorant's constant interplay between the different characters' skillsets, and of course the Counter-Strike players among us will always appreciate the utility of a good old flash. The agent hits the live servers with the arrival of Valorant's Episode 3: Act 1 update on June 22nd.

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.