Riot Games has today unveiled a Clove mural in Edinburgh to celebrate the launch of Valorant’s 25th agent: Clove.
The street mural has been placed alongside other Scottish contemporary and street art pieces at outdoor exhibition space, Quality Yard, located in the heart of Leith’s Old Town.
Edinburgh locals will be in with a chance to claim exclusive goodies for visiting the mural in person.
Rioters, esports teams, and Valorant fans all gathered for the mural’s reveal and members of the public are invited to visit the installation themselves for a limited time, between April 3rd and 30th 2024.
The news comes one week after Riot Games revealed Valorant’s first non-binary agent, Scottish character Clove.
The Edinburgh Eclipse Valorant Team were also invited to see the Clove mural ahead of the announcement this morning.
Alex Fung, President of the Eclipse Esports Society at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Riot was kind enough to give the players on our Valorant team early access to play Clove ahead of their release.
“A number of players on our Valorant teams are non-binary or LGBTQIA+, so it feels extra special to see ourselves represented on multiple levels in the game that we love.”
View more images of the Clove mural on the Esports News UK Instagram page here:
Clove is the sixth controller to be added to Valorant’s roster, but unlike other controllers, Clove’s unique abilities allow for a more aggressive playstyle. As well as manipulating the battlefield and hindering enemy sightlines, Clove’s ultimate ability allows them to self-revive, meaning that death is just an opportunity for them.
The mural, completed by local street artist, Elph, captures these themes of death and rebirth across four large canvases in the heart of Edinburgh’s creative district, Leith. The artwork is accompanied by cinematic animated projections, to give the piece an ethereal presence at night.
Those that visit and share photos of themselves at the mural with @VALORANTukn on X (Twitter) or @VALORANTukie (Instagram) will be in with a chance to win a special Clove gift bundle.
Clove voice actor Isla Campbell on voicing the new agent
Isla Campbell, the voice over artist behind Clove, spoke about their experience bringing the agent to life.
“I graduated university this summer and jumped straight into this,” Isla said. “This is my second ever acting job and first ever voice acting job. I couldn’t have asked for a better role or a better team. It has just been amazing.
“Voicing Clove and working with Riot has just been the best experience. Getting to be unapologetically and authentically Scottish, not a stereotype, not overplayed, is so important and such a privilege that people like my friends who play Valorant will hear Clove’s voice and go, “hold on that’s actually how I speak.
“Scottish accents are a common stereotype in the media so getting to speak in my voice while putting my own little stamp on it makes the character so much more authentic, which is just great.
“Being a non-binary person voicing a non-binary character is just the biggest privilege because I know how important this representation is in a wider sense but also for the people who play the game and can identify with the character.”
Isla Campbell
“I know that it’s going to make a lot of people feel seen, and that’s just an amazing feeling. I hope everyone enjoys meeting Valorant’s new little Scottish troublemaker!”
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
