The first episode of Valorant’s Episode 5 saw the arrival of the new map Pearl, and there’s more content on the way in the form of a new Agent for the third Act coming next week. As we move closer to their anticipated release, we’re compiling a log of everything there is to know so far about Valorant’s Agent 21, Harbor, originally codenamed Mage.
Update 10/12/2022: Riot Games has finally unveiled the first cinematic trailer for Harbor, revealing some of his backstory and teasing the water-themed abilities that are set to make him a powerful controller. You can check it out here or scroll down to find it later in this article.
New Valorant Agent Codename ‘Mage’
We’re only a week away from the Agent’s big launch, and so there’s a pretty substantial amount of teasers and leaks that provide a pretty decent overview of what to expect. As a reminder, Harbor’s codename, Mage, was uncovered by well-known Valorant data miner ValorLeaks a couple of months ago.
New Agent Codename: Mage | #VALORANT
— ValorLeaks | Valorant Leaks & Info (@ValorLeaks) June 24, 2022
Remember, Mage was just a codename, just as Bounty Hunter was Fade’s codename and Sprinter was Neon’s. The Agent’s name is actually Harbor, which was unveiled by an image Riot Games’ Twitter revealed last week (above).
What Agent Type Is Harbor? Answered
Harbor is a Controller-type Agent, confirming our earlier suspicions which we had based on the fact that so few had been added to the game since launch.
There are only four controllers in Valorant: Brimstone, Omen, Viper, and Astra. The other Agent-types all have five, and the launch of Astra –the last Controller added to the game– was way back in February of 2021.
Fake Mage Leak
We can now confirm with absolute certainty that the above image which surfaced over on Reddit a month or so ago is fake. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise; we didn’t think it looked right from the beginning. Not to mention, someone claiming to be its creator actually took to social media to declare it was all an elaborate joke — it was hard to know what to believe, but in any case, we now know it was definitely fake.
Possible Valorant Agent Harbor Abilities
Now we know the above leak was fake, we can start theorizing about Harbor’s actual abilities. And thanks to the recent trailer, that’s been made much easier. First things first, let’s check it out one more time for those who haven’t:
So, what are Harbor’s abilities then? Here are some thoughts as to what we think is likely based on the trailer above:
Some type of water wall pushing enemies backward.
- A water bubble that enemies cannot shoot through.
- A water wall that he can use to obscure large areas of the map, almost like a combination of a Viper toxin wall and Phoenix wall.
- An ultimate ability that shoots water geysers and damages, stuns, or blinds enemies.
Again, do keep in mind these are just our best guesses. We won’t know for certain until the Agent is revealed fully later this week or next.
Valorant Agent Mage Lore
After the launch of a Valorant Public Beta Environment (PBE) build a few weeks back, we have some lore details about Mage/Harbor, which have been added to the practice grounds. Taking a look around Brimstone’s office and the area underneath the range, there’s a reference to an individual named Varun Batra, who is a member of a new agency we haven’t heard of before called REALM. Varun Batra is said to be of interest to both the Alpha and Omega worlds (the two worlds in conflict according to Valorant lore). We are now certain that Varun Batra is Mage’s real name (though again, not their in-game name).
The name Varun Batra is of Indian origin, and there have actually been a number of teasers to suggest Mage is of Indian origin. That has now, of course, been confirmed, but let’s recap anyway:
Riot Games last week revealed a teaser that all but confirmed Varun Batra is Indian. Check out the below sequence which features Killjoy and Astra as they zero in on a location in India:
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) October 6, 2022
The launch of Patch 5.07 also saw Cypher make an appearance in the in-game Range, where you can ask him about Batra. There are more references to India and the origins of his backstory:
Spotted on The Range—catch Cypher with intel on the next Agent. pic.twitter.com/PkUsscEx0i
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) October 5, 2022
The fact that Riot has opted to add an Indian Agent to the game actually makes a lot of sense given that we know there’s a major Valorant community in India, and we haven’t had an Indian Agent in the game so far.
The folks at Valorant Update have already done some digging on the name Varun Batra and found that there is a similar name that crops up in Hindu mythology — Varuna. Varuna is the god of oceans in Hindu culture, which could possibly mean that Mage has some form of aquatic powers. This would fall in line with the elemental nature of other Agent abilities, such as fire (Phoenix), earth (Sage), and wind (Jett). Water is the only element not in the game so far (even if Sage’s Ice Wall appears as though it is related to water).