Riot Games has officially announced this Valorant coming to consoles. The announcement of the Xbox Series to the new platforms.
To take Valorant to consoles was a no-brainer for Riot, according to the developers. After all, according to the studio, the idea of an audience wanting a complex tactical game is not unique to PC. These types of players exist on consoles; they just haven’t really had a game that fits that niche.
“We work on the premise that competitive players are competitive players, regardless of what platform they play on,” says Arnar Gylfason, Valorant‘, said Polygon’s production director. “It’s a bit of a leap of faith… to bring this hardcore competitive tactical shooter to a platform that doesn’t have the same background and history of tactical shooters as PC.”
Image: Riot Games
But even with the audience present, Riot’s bigger challenge was making sure the gameplay was good when translating from PC to console.
“The guiding light has always been that the game has to feel good to play on consoles if we want to make it,” Gylfason said. “That was always true. If the game didn’t feel right or wasn’t fun to play, we were like: We have to solve this or not (make it).”
The first big hurdle was figuring out how to translate Valorant‘s methodical shooting at a controller. Accurate gunplay is the name of the game Valorant‘s PC version, so the console version had to fit in without the benefit of a keyboard and mouse to make that precision easier. Riot’s answer to this is something called Focus Mode, which allows players to enter a different, lower-sensitivity mode when they pull L2 or the left trigger.
Image: The Game Awards/Twitch
According to Gylfason, this mode serves two purposes for Riot. It enables the kind of precision that ValorantThe game’s fast-paced gunplay necessitates players being able to move their analog stick toward targets in moments before pulling the trigger to aim their crosshairs at the target’s head. It also lets Riot keep the familiar ‘left trigger then right trigger’ mechanic common in console shooters – the same mechanic that Call of Duty helped establish almost two decades ago.
All of this adds up to an experience that, in my playing time, feels fundamental and undeniable Valorant. It’s still a tactical shooter, it’s still slow and careful, and almost no changes have been made to the core gameplay to move it to consoles. Gunfights are also still extremely fast-paced and demanding, with headshots rewarding above all else. And the focus mode, combined with a very light aim assist, makes taking those portrait shots feel just as smooth and satisfying as the PC original, if slightly less precise.
Image: Riot Games
“It really had to feel that way Valorant with a different input mechanism,” Gylfason said in a presentation to journalists and content creators ahead of the console version’s unveiling. “We never want players to feel like second-class citizens just based on the platform they play on.”
But just because Riot wants to tap into the console audience with this version of the game doesn’t mean PC players can dip their toes into Xbox and PlayStation every now and then. As part of the initial console version announcement, Riot also made it clear that all progress and cosmetics will transfer between player accounts on each platform, so you won’t have to re-purchase skins no matter where you play.
The only thing that doesn’t carry over is your competitive rank, which is separate for PC and consoles. This is in large part due to the fact that Riot will not be offering crossplay between PC and console Valorant – although Xbox and PlayStation players can play together. While console targeting feels great, it doesn’t match the speed and precision of a mouse and keyboard, which is likely why Riot keeps these rankings separate.
Valorant‘s console versions will be playable in a limited beta starting June 14 on both Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, but the developer has yet to reveal a full release date for the game.