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  2. Valorant

Valorant release date is now official - and it's sooner that you might think

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By Alyssa Mercante published 21 May 2020

The hero shooter will launch for free early next month

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Valorant characters
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Riot Games has just announced the Valorant release date: June 2, just a few days after the closed beta ends on May 28. The game will launch for free worldwide. The announcement was made via a YouTube video from executive producer Anna Donlon and game director Joe Ziegler, which you can watch here. 

“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,” says Donlon in an official press release. “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.” 

"We've been wanting to get you this game to help brighten these tough times," Zielger says in the YouTube video. "But as it turns out, we're not going to be launching this game in a few months." "Because we're launching it in a few weeks!"
Donlon chimes in.

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Valorant will also include new game content, a new game mode, an 11th agent, and a new map at launch. Riot is also adding new game server deployments to drop the latency for Valorant players across the globe in cities including Atlanta, Dallas, London, Madrid, and Warsaw.

It's great to see that Riot Games is able to launch Valorant so soon after the start of its closed beta despite the complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As we previously reported, Valorant broke Twitch's viewing record with 1.7 million concurrent viewers when the beta launched on April 7, and the hype has remained nearly that high since. 

There's not much time - you'll want to brush up on the Valorant characters list. 

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Alyssa Mercante
Alyssa Mercante
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Former Features Writer

Alyssa Mercante used to be a features writer at GamesRadar+ and is now a freelance writer and editor. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters's degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.

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