Valorant 2026 season Kickoff cinematic confirms Viper x Chamber ship

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 05/01/2026

Riot Games has released a new cinematic trailer to kick off the 2026 Valorant season in dramatic style.

The new ‘Why We Fight Back’ cinematic is surprisingly dark and gory, with a particular focus on Viper.

The trailer is appropriately scored by a cover of Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ by KiNG MALA ft Audrey Nuna.

And within this new lore drop, Riot Games has confirmed that there is, in fact, a relationship between Viper and Chamber.

Riot confirms Chamber x Viper

In-game, Chamber has a voice line where he asks Viper out on a date but she rejects him and rather cruelly responds:

“I would rather drink my own poison.”

Yet, in the brand new cinematic, we see Chamber and Viper together, hugging in bed.

This confirms that, at the very least, the Omega Earth versions of Chamber and Viper are dating.

However, all is not as it seems. That scene turns out to be a hallucination as Chamber is killed at the beginning of the trailer.

The rest of the cinematic sees Omega Viper battling for revenge and bitter towards Brimstone for his leadership.

This leads to her killing Brimstone, with the support from the rest of the Omega team.

Viper then leads the team into the Alpha universe to also take down the alternate versions of themselves, starting a war.

Viper battles with Alpha Brimstone and brutally stabs him multiple times after visions of Chamber further enrage her.

Though it’s not clear whether this version of Brimstone survived or not.

This isn’t the only Omega vs Alpha conflict either as we see both versions of Sova take eyes from their counterparts.

Alpha Sova steals Omega’s eye, but Omega later hits the other Sova in the eye with an arrow.

Valorant esports in 2026

The new trailer was to commemorate the start of the game’s new season, and the 2026 Valorant Champions Tour is starting soon too.

Valorant esports will return here in Europe on January 20th with the VCT EMEA 2026 Kickoff.

The event will see the 12 teams battle it out in a new triple elimination bracket.

Each bracket will lead to a final, with the winner of each advancing to represent EMEA internationally at Valorant Masters Santiago.

Later in the year, following Stage 1, the second international Valorant tournament of 2026 will be held in the UK.

VCT is coming to the UK for the first time ever with the Valorant Masters London event in June.

This will then be the final warm-up before the world champions are decided at Valorant Champions Shanghai towards the end of the year.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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