Valorant community torn as Riot elects Sage as the game’s “mommy”

Jeremy Gan
Official art of Valorant character Sage

Riot has all but made it official, labeling Sage as the game’s “mommy” on social media, and such a groundbreaking announcement has left the Valorant community torn.

In an effort to flesh out Valorant’s lore, Riot has been releasing official art of its games’ characters in various missions on their Twitter over the past few months, even officially revealing a relationship between two of its female characters, Killjoy and Raze.

In the latest lore tweet, they have officially elected Sage as the game’s “middle seat mommy”, with a picture of Neon and Jett sleeping on Sage’s shoulders. 

The picture is part of a series of official art depicting the three characters on a Lunar New Year-based adventure. 

The term, Mommy Sage, has been a long-running meme in the Valorant community, with Twitch streamer sagemommy69 popularizing it. It plays off the fact Sage was the game’s original healer and constantly took care of the team. And now Riot has playfully labeled her as such.

The community reacted quite positively to it as Riot recognizes one of its game’s long-standing memes. Reacting with memes of their own at the absurdity of Riot calling one of their beloved characters “mommy”. One such response came from NRG player thwifo tagging his teammate, aridiis, saying, “you’re my middle seat mommy.”

Others questioned who is posting it on the main Valorant account, such as VCT Caster Brennon Hook playfully asking, “naaah whos running this?”Others such as Valorant Streamer WestJett jokingly said they are succumbing to the Edaters and that he’s going to play Minecraft instead. Poking fun at another ongoing joke in Valorant about how the game has turned into a quasi-Edating platform. 

Of course, the post was not meant to be taken seriously, as it is just Riot’s attempt to expand Valorant’s lore, as they have done in League of Legends. And they generally have a good track record of in-game lore writing, creating the critically acclaimed Arcane, which was based on League of Legends.

About The Author

Jeremy is a writer on the Australian Dexerto team. He studied at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and graduated with a Bachelors in Journalism. Jeremy mainly covers esports such as CS:GO, Valorant, Overwatch, League of Legends, and Dota 2, but he also leans into gaming and entertainment news as well. You can contact Jeremy at jeremy.gan@dexerto.com or on Twitter @Jer_Gan