Ryan “RyanCentral” Horton is a British caster and content creator covering Valorant. He is the co-founder and content creator behind HITSCAN (formerly Overwatch Central) where he makes analytical content for Valorant and Overwatch. He is a well-known caster in the European Valorant scene and he has previously worked on the official Blizzard broadcasts for Overwatch Contenders China as well as casting showmatches and tournaments in the EU.
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background in esports?
To be honest, my background in esports is pretty brief: it started when a fellow content creator and I OneAmongstMany set up an Overwatch tournament with our subscribers back in 2016 when we cast the games on our Twitch channels. The tournaments became a regular thing so the community founded ‘Scrim Central’ for weekly tournaments. After a while of casting these weekly tournaments, we were asked to cast some Overwatch Contenders games in China as well as the qualifiers for Europe.
For Valorant, I got early access to the game with our YouTube channel, HITSCAN, and I really wanted to make a good go of casting the game more seriously than I did with Overwatch. The first tournament I did was set up by streamer Gdolphn three days into the closed beta: it’s been an absolute blur since!
What are your thoughts on the recently concluded Challengers 2? Any particular highlights that you can recall?
I’d say the run Vodafone Giants put together was really impressive. Dinko and Xilv and I got to follow them through the open qualifiers so we could see very early on how fundamentally strong this lineup looked. I didn’t quite expect them to qualify for EMEA over, Fnatic but it really does show why these open qualifiers are important.
Moving into the Challenger Playoffs, which team are you supporting?
I like a lot of the teams in the EMEA playoffs but I’d definitely say FPX if I had to pick a team. D00mbros, their coach, has been one of the people I’ve spoken to the most in the VALORANT scene and I’d love to see them get their form back and qualify for Berlin.
I’d also love to see teams like Gambit and SuperMassive Blaze do their regions proud and show that there’s some serious talent in CIS and Turkey. A massive shoutout to the Fire Flux squad as well they’re a team not many expected to get into a tournament like this. I know that their coach has been putting in the work and it’s nice to see it pay off in a huge way.
You transitioned to casting Valorant in its infancy. What potential did you see in the game that made you risk your entire reputation in the Overwatch scene?
My YouTube channel used to be called Overwatch Central when we were making OW content. A lot of people think we rebranded to HITSCAN because of VALORANT, but it was actually planned long before the Project A trailer. We knew that Overwatch 2 was on the way but we didn’t know what it was meant to be.
We rebranded to HITSCAN because we didn’t know if Overwatch 2 was going to be called something different like ‘Calypso’ (its development name), ‘Talon’, or something entirely different. Learning that Overwatch 2 was years away from release and that new heroes wouldn’t be added after Echo made it a very easy decision to go check out VALORANT in a more serious way.
What do you think of the Valorant competitive scene, especially with LANs finally returning to a more consistent schedule?
It’s very full-on and I’m not really sure if that’s a good thing. It’s amazing to see so many regions play out across the globe for a chance to head to the Masters LAN events. For me in the UK, I can wake up watching some Korean Valorant, then watch Europe’s VCT, then finally finish my day by watching North American qualifiers.
I am, however, very glad that the main Stages of the Valorant Champions Tour are mostly over. I feel that fatigue was really setting in for a lot of the players and viewers with just how much Valorant was being played each week. It also doesn’t help that a lot of the circuit is qualifiers going into qualifiers going into qualifiers: now we’re getting to the business end of the Tour and it feels like the teams have something real to play for.
On that note, could you please tell me about your experience casting LAN events? How was it compared to online broadcasting?
The difference is night and day. I’ve always felt that I was a ‘low-energy’ color caster online, so I wondered how well I’d perform on a stage with an audience. I remember even Velly, one of the hosts, saying to me ‘I’ve never seen high energy Ryan casting’, and to be honest, not a lot of people had seen me shout and behave incredibly energetically on a broadcast. You’re able to reach a new level of energy in that environment, one you just can’t manage at home.
I’ve always been incredibly critical of my own casting but I was really proud of how I did. Screaming at an ace from Janny for Team Portugal was something I didn’t see myself doing but I was thankful that I got the chance to go all out.
Your HITSCAN channel has a considerable following. Could you tell us about the story behind it and its role in your career?
Nearly six years ago, I tweeted that I was really excited for Blizzard’s Overwatch. One of my friends, Mysca messaged me saying he was excited for OW too and was planning to make a YouTube channel covering the game.
We launched Overwatch Central together sometime around September 2015, making a boatload of content for the closed beta. and the channel took off when OW launched in 2016. We made OW content for about four and a half years exclusively but like I mentioned before, we pivoted hard into VALORANT while Overwatch went dark in preparation for its sequel.
How do you balance time between preparing for casts and preparing regular videos?
Honestly, pretty poorly. I think one of the big hurdles I have doing the analyst desk is the amount of VODs I need to get through. Luckily, Riot are super supportive: they give us a heads-up if any news is coming out during the week, which allows me to be ready and prepared with the videos.
I will say that HITSCAN has definitely been a lot quieter since I’ve been working the VCT broadcast, but it’s also quite nice to take a step back, make content on the super important stuff, like the skins, and focus on doing my best for VCT. I’m excited to try striking a balance between maintaining HITSCAN and casting VALORANT.
Feedback is essential to make any improvements, and esports has a plethora of ways to receive it. What methods do you utilize to improve outside of your on-air time?
VOD reviewing yourself is easily the most consistent element you can do to improve. For newer talent, I’d definitely recommend sitting down and deciding what you want to bring to a broadcast. Do you want to be more energetic? Do you want to highlight more nuanced details in a breakdown? Do you just want to add a little bit more story and narrative in the broadcast?
I think too many people focus on “I’m just going to rewatch my broadcast and nitpick the stuff I say” and they don’t focus enough on “this is the direction I want to take myself in order to improve”.
What mistakes do you think young casters make the most often? Do you have any advice for them?
On the subject of feedback, I think they focus too much on community perception. I love seeing Reddit post appreciation threads about specific casters in VALORANT but I don’t think it’s a legitimate indication of how good some of the talent is actually doing. For example, I’ve never seen an appreciation post about Mitch and Tom who are doing fantastically in EMEA: the same can be said for Achillios and Paperthin in Korea.
So many casters are fixated on how the community perceives them than their own opinions (and their peers’). It’s similar to those casters who set a goal of “casting a Masters event”: you’re setting goals and expectations that are outside of your control. You’re better off focusing on the things you can control: with the right amount of work and patience, you’ll start to see it all bear fruit.
Is there any agent which you feel could perform relatively better and become more useful in the metagame?
Astra isn’t played as much in Europe as in some of the other regions. I still feel she’s the most impactful controller available. Something similar happened with Sage beforehand: she got nerfed, pros stopped playing her as they thought she’s trash-tier now, then suddenly, her pick rate rose again once pros realized she’s still actually very strong.
Would you consider switching back to Overwatch should the scene pop off again in the future, or are you permanently invested in Valorant at this point?
While I’m definitely interested in checking out and making content on Overwatch 2 at its launch, I’m really happy that I made the switch to Valorant so I want it to be my main focus going forward.
Do you play Valorant regularly yourself?
I haven’t played any ranked this episode. With me casting, watching, and making content on VALORANT, I really don’t want to overload myself by playing more of it in my spare time.
One last question before we conclude: what would you say are some of the key differences between the European and North American Valorant scenes?
The biggest thing recently has been the formats. At the start of the year, EU VALORANT had a nightmare with single-elimination tournaments, no broadcasts of the open qualifiers, and only five members of talent working full days with no real breaks. It’s amazing to see Riot and Freaks4u respond to the feedback and genuinely make EMEA one of the best broadcasts out of the global circuit.
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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
