Lag compensation
Also said as Hit rewind, Favour the shooter, Backwards reconciliation
When a shot reaches the server, it rewinds everyone to where they were on the shooter's screen when they fired, and judges the hit there.
Without it, you would have to aim ahead of your target by your own ping, and every player would need a different lead. With it, you aim at what you see, and the other player sometimes dies after reaching cover.
Say it
“Rewind hitboxes on the server by the shooter's ping plus interpolation, capped at 200 ms. Above that, a player has to lead their shots, so one awful connection cannot ruin the match for others.”
Where you’ve seen it
Valorant rewinds its world to what the shooter saw, within limits to prevent abuse. Riot estimates the related peeker's advantage at about 141 ms under baseline conditions, and says zero cannot be reached.
Not to be confused with client-side prediction
Prediction hides the delay on your own actions. Lag compensation hides the delay in what you can see of others.