Valorant, Riot Games’s free-to-play hero shooter, launched on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on Friday in the United States and Canada, Europe, Japan, and Brazil, Riot announced. The news was a bit unexpected because, while Valorant had gotten a limited beta period on consoles beginning mid-June, no release date had been set, formally.
The game’s production director, Arnar Gylfason, said in a news release that console and PC players will, going forward, see the same launches of title updates, patches and balances, plus premium content including new characters and other live service features.
However, consoles and PC will remain separate as far as multiplayer. Riot says this is to maintain “competitive integrity,” meaning gamepad players will matchmake amongst themselves and PC will remain a keyboard-and-mouse game.
Other games with cross-platform play, particularly shooters, have had problems with keyboard-and-mouse users having a big advantage over gamepad players. So in addition to not enabling PC/console cross-play, PC will not be getting controller support.
Valorant is Riot Games’ second game. Really, only its second. The League of Legends maker has had considerable success with its core franchise (launched 2009, with a very prominent esports presence); the studio/publisher put out Valorant for PC in 2020.
In addition to Valorant’s console launch, the game will see a balance tweak specific for gamepads that make hip-firing a little easier. The feature is called Focus, which “behaves essentially like hip-fire, but with reduced sensitivity,” Gylfason said. “This way, players can use hip-fire whenever they need speed in moving their camera/aim, but utilize focus mode whenever they need precision.
“This also approximates the shooting mechanic to what console players are used to in shooters, all of this without losing the added value Valorant’s aim down sights provides,” Gylfason added.
The free-to-play game is available now through both consoles’ online marketplaces; on PC, Valorant can be found exclusively on the Epic Games Store.
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