If there’s one thing I love about Valorant, it’s the lore. With new agents regularly joining the fray, there’s always something exciting happening in Riot’s FPS game. But don’t let the new agents distract you from the fact that Riot is still keeping the whereabouts of Agent Eight (A8) a closely guarded secret. For those unaware, one person is missing from Valorant protocol, and for some ridiculous reason, everyone’s okay with it.
It wasn’t before a curious teaser for agent 23 was dropped that players paid attention to the missing number eight in the agent list. A8 could be the next agent in Valorant, but if you listen closely to Viper, Cypher, Omen, and Kay/O’s voice lines, you’d also worry about the safety of the missing agent. Terrible things have happened in the Kingdom, and I can’t help but wonder where A8 is.
“They’re scared. I don’t need cameras to see that.”
Who is Valorant agent eight?
Officially, we don’t know who Valorant A8 is, but we do know that they exist, thanks to Joe Killeen (aka Riot ParmCheesy), who clarified that they’ll join the Protocol as soon as they “get back.”
On Riot’s official website, Valorant agents are listed numerically, with Killjoy acquiring the eighth spot. But when you move to the Valorant Spotify playlist, things start to get fishy; you’ll notice that the eighth slot is missing. Valorant’s official cinematics further confirm that A8 is real, and it’s likely just that Legion (the bad guys) are sweeping something under the rug.
So, we have two cinematics that hint at A8’s existence: Warm Up and Revelation. Warm-up provides a peek into Protocol’s (Alpha) HQ, where we can see A8’s locker, though their numeric designation has been scratched out. This doesn’t look good. However, things are even worse in Legion – there isn’t even a locker for A8. Instead, the sequence jumps from locker seven straight to nine, suggesting that the missing agent has been completely erased from their records.
If you don’t already know, Legion are the bad guys, at least from what we know. So, a missing locker isn’t a good omen. Now, Riot refuses to spill the beans, and it’s only fanning wild theories. However, some of them make a lot of sense.
What happened to the mysterious Valorant agent eight?
Is A8 Nora, Cypher’s alleged dead wife? Do they have something to do with Reyna’s dead or ailing sister Lucia? Or could they be related to Brimstone? Players are running wild with ideas, but a time-meddler theory makes the most sense.
In Valorant EP1 Act 2, Riot rolled out a card dubbed Memento Mori with an hourglass attached, pointing at the idea of time. Now, it’s worth noting that ‘Memento Mori’ is a Latin phrase that means ‘remember your mortality.’ Next, in EP2 Act 1, we got an Infinity skin collection, where one variant has the number 8 stamped on the side. It seems Riot has been hinting at A8’s time-traveling shenanigans, so A8 likely has the powers to meddle with time and reality, not unlike Yoru.
On the surface, it sounds like A8 is just chilling in some other reality. However, the scratched-out numbers on the locker points to some tension between the Protocol and the missing agent. It’s not entirely out of left field to assume that A8 isn’t on good terms with the Protocol. Chamber, Viper, Omen, and Breach all seem to have a shared history, but what exactly did A8 do that was so terrible as to warrant their exile from the group? After all, Protocol embraced the corrupt Chamber, who literally destroyed a peace initiative between Alpha and Omega.
So, the only thing that makes sense at this point is that Legion has abducted A8 since they are the ones pretending that no such agent exists. It’s possible that Protocol sent out A8 for a crucial mission to Earth 2, and when A8 never returned, the Protocol squad assumed that A8 had betrayed their trust.
Chamber was welcomed back into the squad after he saved Brimstone and Sage, but A8 never returned – there’s no forgiveness for betrayal, after all. It’s also possible that A8’s disappearance is tied to Chamber’s villain arc, encouraging him to destroy the collider for a greater purpose. No one knows what that purpose is, but maybe A8 is somehow behind those mysterious machinations.
Whatever the case, I hope Brimstone and the team can put their differences with A8 aside and rescue them in time for the next agent’s release. Who knows, the next agent would bring something new to the roster. Riot has previously confirmed that lots of new Valorant characters are coming, but one of them may be very, very different, so I’d suggest slotting in one of the best Valorant crosshairs just in case – you can never be too prepared, right?