Cover-Credits:
It is safe to say that Riot Games broke the internet on 11th December after it released a beautifully drawn illustration of Raze and Killjoy kissing, a relationship that has been talked about a lot in the Valorant community for two years now. The community gave the two agents a ship name called “nanobomb,” a blend of Killjoy’s nano swarm and Raze’s bombs. The kiss between Raze and Killjoy seems to be the culmination of a photo series from Salvador, Brazil and with this, Riot Games has canonized the relationship between Raze and Killjoy.
The Valorant social media handles have been following the journey of Killjoy, Raze, Yoru, Phoenix, and Neon in Salvador. Riot Games has been posting photos of the gang from the trip from 7th December and they are all from Neon’s perspective.
Nanobomb’s story wonderfully illustrated in five photos
The whole nanobomb photoseries by Riot Games was wholesome and caught the community by surprise. On 7th December, Valorant’s social media handles posted a photo of the agents after they arrived in Salvador. While Neon looked extremely tired from the journey, we could see Killjoy sitting next to her, holding her head, without her iconic beanie. On the other side, Raze can be seen looking at Killjoy and Yoru intently reading a book titled ‘Portuguese.’
The caption for the photo, which is supposed to be written by Neon, said, “Kumusta na [Hello]. First day in Salvador! Feels like I ran head-first into a brick wall, but at least I didn’t forget all my stuff like some people... Can’t wait for tonight, though! Raze is hyping up the live music scene here.”
The second photo is a continuation of this story and shows Killjoy shopping for a beanie along with Neon and failing to find the right one. The third illustration is set in Raze’s workshop and captured a very annoyed-looking Killjoy, possibly due to her missing her beanie.
The fourth illustration is very detailed and is from a bird’s eye view of a music festival. Looking closely, we can see Raze surprise Killjoy with a gift box. Fans were quick to spot this and wondered what the box contained and a few guessed that it could be a beanie from Raze.
The last photo, the one that officiated the nanobomb ship in Valorant, also has the gift box from Raze.
Nanobomb’s love story in Valorant
Players were quick to identify a relationship in the making between Raze and Killjoy, thanks to their flirty voice lines in the game. One of Raze’s many voice lines is: “Killjoy, after this, you wanna do some… tinkering?” and Raze says tinkering after a brief pause. Killjoy replies, “Sure, but if anything explodes again, you are telling Brim.”
Likewise, when Riot Games released a dating simulator for Valorant during April Fools, Cypher talked about the nanobomb picnicking on the beach. He said, “Since you asked, I did see Raze and Killjoy picnicking on the beach. All this dating drama… Good thing I’m married.”
Notably, in one of the battle passes titled “Crossover” in Dimension, Act 1, Riot Games released a player card featuring Raze and Killjoy together. The card is called “Friendly Fire - Killjoy & Raze versus the tentacled terrors.”
This is not the first time Riot Games has made the relationship between its characters official in its game titles. However, Raze and Killjoy aka nanobomb are the first confirmed LGBTQIA+ agents in Valorant. Notably, multiple League of Legends champions have also been confirmed to be in LGBTQIA+ relationships by Riot. However, there was a whole debacle of the publisher admitting that localization teams censored some content in certain regions.
According to a report by Sky News, League of Legends executive producer Jeremy Lee reportedly revealed that the developer would replace words such as "lover" with "partner" in countries unfriendly to LGBTQIA+ rights.
But it is a happy sight to see Riot Games finally openly make official a same-sex couple with a beautifully written buildup. The fans are also extremely excited to see Valorant’s lore expand with small yet impactful character-building gestures.
