Valorant is coming to consoles in an ongoing open beta next week on June 14, and it'll feature gameplay custom-built for controllers.
At Summer Game Fest 2024 today, Riot announced that Valorant, its five-on-five competitive first-person shooter, would be coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles very soon. So soon, in fact, that it'll be out in beta form next week on June 14 for both platforms.
The beta will be available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and Japan on June 14. After this, Riot will monitor the ongoing beta and assess whether it can bring Valorant to consoles in other regions around the world. There's no word on which regions these might be as of right now.
Playing a rapid FPS against mouse and keyboard users on PC who have 2 years to train doesn't sound fun, so Riot has taken that into consideration. It'll "feature custom-built Valorant gameplay" for users on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S systems, and while we don't know the intricacies of these features right now, we do know that Valorant's console players won't be able to play against PC foes.
However, all Valorant players will have shared cross-progression between PCs and consoles, including account inventories carrying over. Going forward, Valorant will push out patches to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S players all at the same time, so even if PC and console players aren't facing off against one another, they'll still have feature parity.
"When exploring whether to bring Valorant to additional platforms, we knew we had to be able to offer the same uncompromising, competitive experience that we’ve provided to PC players for years: a precise, team-based, tactical shooter," said Valorant production director in a press release.
"We were adamant that Valorant’s core, competitive gameplay must feel natural on a controller; and - if we couldn’t deliver on that gameplay promise - we had to be prepared to walk away from it. We hope we nailed it, but ultimately, our players will have the final say," the lead developer adds.
