Valorant team forced to forfeit official match as one of its players was "too busy" playing Honkai Star Rail

A professional Valorant team has been forced to forfeit an official match, and Honkai Star Rail is to blame.

We're currently in the middle of the second split of the Challengers League in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which forms part of Riot's official tournament circuit, otherwise known as the Valorant Champions Tour. As part of that, a team called Ghost Commandos was due to face another called S2 Esports. Except, that match didn't happen, as GCS officially forfeited.

On the bright side, most people have been fairly understanding. I've seen that story pop up in a few places and now, and the comments are generally filled with people saying things like "understandable" and "can't blame them". When a game is good, it's good; what can we say?

Thankfully, Ghost Commandos got its act together for the next match a day later. The team didn't win, though they did take part, which is surely a step in the right direction.

If one Valorant pro's commitment to Honai Star Rail isn't indicative enough of how well it's doing, the gacha game racked up 20 million downloads in a single day, smashing Genshin Impact's own impressive debut. Another Honkai Star Rail player even committed to a 65-hour grind in one week to prove you can already get 300 pulls for free.

I joined GamesRadar+ in May 2022 following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When I'm not running the news team on the games side, you'll find me putting News Editor duties to one side to play the hottest JRPG of 20 years ago or pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new cloak – the more colourful, the better.