Riot’s newest game, tactical shooter Valorant, will launch for free on PC on June 2, following an extremely successful beta period which began on April 7. The beta will come to an end on May 28 at 9 am PT (12 pm ET/5 pm BST). The launch will bring with it a new game mode, a new map, and a new agent, as well as new weapon skins and a battle pass system.
“Our goal has always been to bring VALORANT to as much of the world as soon as possible, so we’re hyped to be able to do so on June 2,” stated Anna Donlon, the executive producer of Valorant. “The team looks forward to starting our decades-long commitment to servicing the global VALORANT community. This is just the beginning of our journey together.”
Anna Donlon joined game director Joe Ziegler in an update video to talk about their launch plans for Valorant. During the discussion, it is revealed that there were plans for twelve agents to be released, but this has been changed to having only eleven available at launch (there are currently ten). Ziegler explained that the twelfth agent simply didn’t make the cut, mainly due to the pressure that was on the developers.
“But the 11th Agent that people are gonna see on day one is definitely gonna be an interesting one and a little spicy potentially,” Ziegler continued. “So, we’ll see how people react to it.”
A picture on the Valorant Twitter teased the new agent’s arrival. The tweet contained the full lineup of Agents in the game, but one character only had one foot visible in the image, on the far-right side. Apart from the comments in the update video, this is all the information we’ve been given about the new agent so far. More teasers will most likely be released before launch.
The end of VALORANT Closed Beta is upon us! Now's the time to rally your troops for one last weekend of game time before launch. May the queues be ever in your favor. pic.twitter.com/vSGJThpC50
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) May 22, 2020
Another map and a fresh game mode will be released alongside the new agent. The map was shown briefly at the start of the update video (at 4:40), but again, this is the only information that fans have been given as of yet. As for the game mode, Riot has stated that it will give fans something to play in-between their regular, stressful matches. There was a theory, originating from datamined info, that it would be a Team Deathmatch mode. Donlon has quashed those rumours.
The Valorant launch is set to be huge, if its popularity thus far is any indicator. Throughout the closed beta, the game averaged around three million players per day, and it nearly broke the concurrent viewership record on Twitch on its opening day, peaking at over 1.7 million viewers. Riot have made arrangements for the rising demand, including prioritising new game server deployments to lower latency for the game. The new server locations are Atlanta, Dallas, London, Madrid and Warsaw.
Valorant launches on June 2 for PC.
