Riot Games’ competitive team-based shooter, Valorant, has been in beta for almost two months, but the action will grind to a halt at 9am PT/5pm BST today (May 28).
If you search for a game after this time you won’t be able to find a match. However, if you’re currently battling it out around that time, the game servers will close at 10:30am PT/6:30pm BST, which should give you plenty of time to wrap up the win.
Valorant has shot to Twitch stardom due to Riot Games’ rather ingenious plan to only provide beta keys via Twitch drops for viewers. That meant a lot of people watched hours and hours of Valorant in the hopes of getting a key.
When the game launches on June 2, all the progress from the Valorant beta will be reset, apart from any rewards that players have earned. Interestingly, if you purchased any skins in the beta, these will not carry over. Instead, you’ll be refunded the Valorant points you spent (the game’s currency) and receive an additional 20% in return. Nice.
Medal of honor
Valorant has been generally well-received by gamers during its closed beta, although it’s faced criticism for its lack of protection against cheaters, who managed to disrupt the game early on, and its spotty hit-detection, which is a game-breaking bug for a competitive shooter.
Riot Games’ has promised that Valorant will feature new content during the game’s launch window, including a new map, a new game mode, a new agent and probably loads of new skins for players to buy.
Like any big online release, it will be interesting to see whether Valorant’s servers will be able to cope with a large influx of players at launch. Historically, developers have struggled to cope with initial demand, which always sets the game off on the wrong foot. With such a lengthy beta, though, specifically aimed at generating hype for the game, let’s hope that Riot Games has everything in place to deliver a smooth launch on June 2.
Via Forbes
