League of Legends developer Riot Games are venturing into a wider range of genres, with their first person tactical shooter Valorant set for release later this year. Before they get there, though, they’re holding a closed beta next week, from 7th April.
The beta will be limited to players in Europe, Canada, Russia, Turkey, and the United States, with further countries and regions a possibility, but dependent on how the Covid-19 pandemic progresses.
Valorant was finally revealed at the start of this month after some persistent rumours and teases by Riot Games. Though initial expectations and comparisons of the 5v5 FPS were made to Blizzard hero shooter Overwatch, the game is more akin to a supernatural CS:GO, with fast tactical shooting combined with special character abilities.
Riot are clearly targeting a competitive esports scene with this, just as they have done with League of Legends. The game is designed with 144fps support from the off, with a stylised art direction helping many machines to achieve that, and data centres dotted around the world to help with low latency and a 128Hz server tick rate, ensuring that the game is translating player actions as accurately as possible and hoping to cut out lagging gameplay. It will also have anti-cheat software built in from the very off.
To sign up for the beta, you’ll need to jump through the hurdles of creating both a Riot and Twitch account, linking them together, and then hoping you get picked out of a lucky hat while watching certain highlighted Valorant streams.
- Register for a Riot account (create a Riot account here)
- Link your Riot account to a Twitch account (create a Twitch account here)
- When closed beta activates in your region (EU and NA for now), watch specific VALORANT streams highlighted on Twitch for the opportunity to be entitled for Closed Beta access
Even if you don’t get into the closed beta, Valorant is intended for a full launch on PC in summer 2020.
Source: press release
