VALORANT is launching on Tuesday, June 2nd and release times have been revealed for each region:
Korea, Japan, Asia-Pacific: 8AM KST
EU, Turkey, MENA, Russia & CIS: 7AM CEST
NA, LATAM & South America: 5AM PDT / 8AM EDT
The image accompanying the post on social media appears to be the opening frame from a short film / trailer. In addition to the text reading, “Episode 01: Ignition”. There’s also smaller text below the title that reads “Ascent // Italy” under the title.
This suggests that there are seasons in VALORANT, called “Episodes, and the first season is known as Ignition. Maybe we’ll get a bit more information about the Agent’s backstories in this opening trailer.
The image and text also suggest the new map could be based around an Italian theme. The trailer that accompanied the launch date reveal, showed Jett jumping over a canal with gondolas. That scene looked exactly like Venice, Italy. Maybe the new map will be based in Venice? Either way we can’t wait to play VALORANT during the official launch!
Read our overview of what’s to expect at launch »
Game Director Joe Ziegler and Executive Producer Anna Donlon surprised fans with a video announcement. They revealed that the game would not be launching in a few months, but in a few weeks! Tuesday, June 2nd, to be exact.
While exactly how the global rollout will proceed has not been revealed, this is great news for fans not able to make it into the closed beta.
With server stability, anti-cheat, ranked, and other systems being fine-tuned, is Riot Games ready for launch?
The VALORANT team addressed all of these issues in a blog post.
On Vanguard, the anti-cheat system, the team mentioned that it’s still a work in progress. At launch a new auto-ban system will be deployed that can aggressively remove waves of cheaters as they are detected.
On addressing player behavior, an automated report system will help the team widely enforce a policy that discourages player harassment. 72-hour voice and chat restrictions will be doled out to those found in violation of the policy
On servers, the team is working with ISPs globally to improve routing to the best servers. In the short-term new gamer server deployment will happen in Warsaw, Madrid, London, Atlanta, and Dallas. The team is also looking to address latency issues in Colombia, Argentina, and Eastern Europe.
On regions at launch, the game will not yet be available in Vietnam. Players in India and the Middle East will be routed to SEA and European servers respectively until servers can be built out in those areas.
On the game itself, the team says they will continue to take note of bugs and balance issues to maintain competitive integrity. We can also expect new agents, new maps, new skins, and new ways to compete. Having an alternative game mode by launch or a few weeks after is on their to-do-list.
We’ll keep you updated on further announcements as the launch date draws closer.
Read the full blog post from the VALORANT team »
