A significant amount KAY/O's lore has to do with a future event known as the Radiant War. For more information on it, see its page.
KAY/O is the 17th Agent to join the VALORANT Protocol. A machine built for war, he uses his built-in Radianite technology from the future to locate and suppress his enemies' powers.
KAY/O is a machine of war built for a single purpose: neutralizing radiants. His power to suppress enemy abilities cripples his opponents' capacity to fight back, securing him and his allies the ultimate edge.
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Lore[]
KAY/O utilizes polarized Radianite to suppress his enemies in combat, disallowing the use of the opponents' abilities. Using ZERO/POINT, KAY/O is able to throw a knife which sticks in its target and suppresses those nearby. Additionally, KAY/O can utilize FLASH/DRIVE and FRAG/MENT, both grenade-like projectiles stored in his arms, as a Flash and a Molly respectively. Lastly, his ultimate ability, NULL/CMD, overloads his core with polarized radianite energy, causing him to emit large pulses of suppression.
The State of the Agents article preceding KAY/O hinted at his abilities, calling some of them 'familiar to those who've played traditional FPS games their whole lives'. This is in reference to his FLASH/DRIVE and FRAG/MENT, both of which function similar to Flashbangs and Frag Grenades, which are popularly used in other tac-shooters (such as CS:GO).
KAY/O's name is an acronym for 'Kingdom Anti Yield Operative', revealed in his dossier released by Fade. According to Fade, the Kingdom Anti Yield Operative project was meant to be cancelled as it was a rejected proposal, however, KAY/O was still built in spite of this rejection. A colloquial meaning of KAY/O, as coined by the robot in one of his voicelines, is 'Kill All Your Opponents'.
KAY/O is an anti-radiant killing machine built during the Radiant War, which takes place more than 200 years from present day. In it, a brutal war took place between Radiants and Humans, which is implied to have been started and led by Reyna. The specifics of it remain unknown, but it caused a massive split in the VP, causing many to speculate that it took place soon after a ruinous, traumatic event that destabilized the PROTOCOL and its members.
The destruction the RW caused was near-limitless; it is speculated to have killed off several members of the VALORANT PROTOCOL (such as Brimstone and Jett). KAY/O himself is implied to have killed several of those on the radiant side, including Astra, Skye, and Reyna. Traumatized by the horrible toll the war took on the planet, KAY/O decided to travel back in time (so 'current' time) in order to stop the war from taking place. He was possibly helped in this by Thurston Wolf. KAY/O finally arrived at current time though the teleportal at Breeze.
Dossier[]
KAY/O's Dossier, found in Fracture
KAY/O's dossier is unique among all the other dossiers, in that the blackmailer knows very little about KAY/O as compared to other Agents.
The Dossier starts with the Blackmailer trying to get her head around how KAY/O exists. She considers his abilities similar to an old Kingdom project called the 'Anti-Yield Program'. It was, however, scrapped, leaving the unsolved question of 'how, then, does KAY/O exist?'
After this, the Blackmailer returns to her classical malicious and prying tone. She describes how KAY/O's purpose is to kill Radiants, and how it must pain him to work alongside them. This is especially so for Reyna, who we know to have been the leader of the Radiant side of the Radiant War.
In review, though, it stands that the Blackmailer fails to dig as deep into his character as she has for the rest of the Agents. Other than the small segment on Reyna at the end, the body of the dossier is simply 'You shouldn't exist' and 'You go against your programming'. Hardly a strong message, especially when compared to the strength with which she has berated all the other Agents.
This could be, potentially, because her methodology with the dossiers simply doesn't work as well for KAY/O. It's clear enough by now that they aren't meant to arbitrarily 'further their story', or to attack their character faults, but rather to pry at their own, personal fears.
In this sense, she finds it difficult to find something that KAY/O well and truly fears - he has just come from an alternate reality, where the one friend he holds dear has died before his eyes, the world has been destroyed by the raging fires of a calamitous war, and on confronting the one who caused the destruction he came out on top. The terrifying horrors that KAY/O must have already gone through in the Radiant War don't leave too much room for fears that can be exploited, as he has already taken on and overcome most of them.
This was clarified on in the Blackmailer's Social Media Teaser Campaign, where a series of fears for all the Agents in the Istanbul Strike Team were shown. KAY/O's fear had him sitting in a dark void, holding Brimstone's lifeless corpse in his hands, his body smoking and unable to activate. It is representative of losing Brimstone again - that, despite having gone through the pains of travelling back through time, he was unable to save his best friend.
Appearance[]
KAY/O is a robot, but has a humanoid design comprising largely of an unknown metal, with some pieces of leather. At several locations along his body, one can see the Polarized Radianite which he uses to neutralize Radiant abilities. Visible streaks of energy emit from his body.
Some KAY/O artwork. Note the dog tags, the bloodied cloth, and the Wolf logo.
He has a screen for a face, which shows an image relevant to the current in-game circumstances, and a peak meter when he is speaking. It is able to show various other images and icons: in the WARM UP cinematic, his face showed a 'Panic' symbol multiple times, and even a GG later on; in his reveal trailer, the screen was shown with a multitude of different images, and even some text.
KAY/O is also seen wearing dog tags[5] representing his military affiliation, this is something he shares with Brimstone. He also has a bloodied piece of Brimstone's shirt tied to his arm, furthering their connection.
KAY/O has the Wolf logo on him, implying the involvement of Thurston Wolf in his creation. Interestingly, KAY/O's body does not have the Kingdom Logo stamped on it anywhere. This could tie in to the possibility of Kingdom, despite its incredible power, having fallen during the war.
Relationships[]
KAY/O has a deep bond with Brimstone, alongside whom he fought in the future war. KAY/O is believed to have been modeled off of Brimstone in some capacity (i.e. height, body shape). This could be a reason for KAY/O's usage of military vocabulary. In the Memory Log Card, KAY/O is seen walking away from a burning, war-torn city, carrying Brim in his arms. This furthers the deep bond between the two. An Easter Egg exists in-game, in which equipping the FIRE/ARM Classic skin with the Memory Chip gunbuddy allows for the buddy to be opened, but only whilst playing Brimstone[6]. This signifies the immense trust KAY/O puts into Brimstone, with Brim being is the only one allowed access to KAY/O's memories of the future. Several voicelines suggest that KAY/O fought with Brimstone right till the end, and that Brimstone died because KAY/O 'failed him'. Brimstone's death in the war is likely a large motivator for KAY/O's traveling through time.
Despite his misgivings of Killjoy's contraptions being considered "Killer Robots", KAY/O does have faith in her technological skills, and he relies on her for repairs. A popular theory has emerged claiming that she was the person who built KAY/O, but there is no proof of this anywhere.
KAY/O is wary of Cypher, for he had been eyeing KAY/O's hardware, and has historically been known to steal things from others.
KAY/O has a close and friendly kinship with Sova, likely originating from them having fought together in the Radiant War.
KAY/O recognizes and respects Sage's combat capability, considering her label of 'healer' as undermining as he instead considers her to be "a weapon" in his universe.
KAY/O and Phoenix are close friends, sharing an almost 'brotherly' relationship, complete with incessant bickering. Of the two, Phoenix is much more enthusiastic of their partnership, having labeled the two of them to be 'Team Forge'.
KAY/O's main enemy seems to be Reyna. As the supposed leader of the radiant war, KAY/O seems to hold a grudge against Reyna for "what she did" to the members of the VALORANT PROTOCOL, which is largely unknown. KAY/O killed Reyna in the war, and wishes to kill any other Reynas from any other universes. He fights alongside Reyna only for the greater good, and acknowledges her performance only at Brimstone's request.
As with most other tech users, KAY/O has a good relationship with Raze. He considers her a friend, and admires prowess in explosives, making friendly comments on their usage.
KAY/O and Breach share a friendly rivalry. They are known to compete in games of Billiards, with KAY/O often winning and taking the prize money from Breach.
Cards[]
The VALORANT KAY/O card is a generic portrait of KAY/O.
The memory log card shows KAY/O carrying Brimstone, while walking away from a destroyed city. It is similar to Brimstone's 'No One Left Behind' card.
The reboot card is a teaser card for KAY/O. It shows the sign that is seen on KAY/O's face on a portal connected with two thick wires. The area around the portal is totally devastated, it was possibly one of the locations where KAY/O was deployed in battle. It is similar in design to the portals that are seen in Bind and the Range, although it appears to be drawing much more power.
The KAY/O ID card is KAY/O's VALORANT PROTOCOL identification card. It depicts his Agent number 17 and shows a portrait image of KAY/O
The card shows the relation between Brimstone and KAY/O. It shows Brimstone in a different, Navy Blue uniform firing an Ares and KAY/O firing a Judge in a battlefield. Jett's Kunai is present in the foreground, shown lying in the dust.
The WARM UP // Maxbot card shows the promotional poster for the WARM UP cinematic as an in-game playercard. It includes all of the Agents who were present in the cinematic (with the sole exception of Brimstone), one of whom was KAY/O.
Voicelines[]
Find all of KAY/O's voicelines here
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KAY/O's first tease was the Reboot card (see Cards above), available in the E2A3 battlepass at Tier 48.
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The teleportal at Breeze was periodically updated, with the message on the screen below changing as well. Having started as a blank screen, it progressed to 'Sequence Initiated', 'Target Locked', 'Arrival Imminent', and finally 'Portal Breach'.
All the messages are in blue, except for the last one ('Portal Breach'), which is in Orange. That message is accompanied with several alarm signs, and an image of KAY/O. The image is the same as the one visible on the KAY/O ID Playercard (see Cards above).
The portal itself only activated at the 'Target Locked' phase[7]. On the 'Arrival Imminent' phase, a Knife was also seen thrown into a nearby Radianite box[8] (this being the same Knife KAY/O uses for his ZERO/POINT). The knife periodically sparked, and seemed to be interacting with the Radianite in the box.
(note the Knife on the Radianite Crate)
State of the Agents[]
The image in the SoA article
A new State of the Agents article was published on 28th May, 2021. Towards the end, the writer's keyboard glitched into a flurry of random characters. Attempts to decode the text have proven mostly inconclusive. At the end of the article was an image named 'Data Transfer'.
Our hope is that the @*&#*&!(&H! #$ &*! *%# &@! *U&^A! “@*!!*(@@*&^” (@&* ^@!^& &@! *&# &^C#^ANG W*^@ $O )(E&# *N@! S!T#$
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On 2nd June, 2021, the YR1 Events article was posted, detailing a list of events that Riot had planned to celebrate VALORANT's 1 Year Anniversary. The last 'event' listed on the page was 'New Agent???'. Unlike all the other events, this one did not have a date attached. All that was given below was a black motif, that is associated with KAY/O.
On 11th June, 2021, the VALORANT twitter account put out a short teaser video for KAY/O. This is a short section of KAY/O's Reveal trailer[9].
Notes[]
- KAY/O's working name in the files is "Grenadier".
- KAY/O is voiced by Gabe Kunda.
- KAY/O is known to have ran simulations of VALORANT gameplay to gain experience via machine learning, as shown in his reveal trailer.
- As with most other Agents, KAY/O has a Spotify playlist:
Sources[]
- KAY/O's Agent Page Go
- KAY/O's Voicelines Go
- KAY/O's Agent Reveal Trailer Go
- The May State of the Agents Article Go
- The YR1 Events Article Go
References[]
- ↑ KAY/O's purpose - Instagram Story Go
- ↑ KAY/O's abilities - Instagram Story Go
- ↑ KAY/O's favorite music - Instagram Story Go
- ↑ KAY/O's mastered game - Instagram Story Go
- ↑ KAY/O's dog tags - Instagram Story Go
- ↑ This Easter Egg was first documented by reddit user u/Banana_Leclerc12, in a post on the r/VALORANT subreddit Go