With the new release of Valorant on the 2nd of June it is important we take a look at the esports side of things, as this game has extreme potential to be one of the biggest esports in the FPS genre.
Valorant’s Community – the good and the bad
First off, let’s look at the general community for Valorant. Ever since the release of the closed beta in a set amount of regions, we’ve seen a fair amount of both praise and backlash towards certain decisions that the Valorant Developers team have taken.
An example of this is when the community complained about Valorant’s 10th agent, Raze. Riot Games had promised that the game was not going to be killing enemies with abilities, but rather utilizing abilities to assist in getting kills, however with Raze it was a totally different story.
Each ability that this character has deals damage, which to a certain extent may seem unbalanced, however the developers realised she was maybe a little bit too strong and immediately got a nerf.
Some other instances of backlash were:
- The Vanguard anti-cheat
- The cheating situation in the high ranks of Valorant
- Sage being too strong as a stalling agent
- Valorant being a CS:GO / Overwatch rip off game because of the similarities
- Highest rank being named Valorant
The approach that Riot is taking with Valorant’s development is quite interesting. This is because even though the official decisions are taken by Riot Games, they’re basing off their updates and in-game changes on the community’s feedback.
If the community is voicing its opinion about a broken bug or mechanic, the developers have always been quick to assess the issue and fix it in the least time possible.
Will ranks be kept onto the launch version?
Riot Games have stated that the rank will not progress through to the launch version on June 2nd. They have also added that ranked will not be available to play until they verify that there are no major issues within the game in order to make sure that competitive play is kept at a good condition.
Events so far
Considering the game is still in closed beta, there have been a fair share of events and esport matches from different regions. Some of the esport tournaments that caught the most attention were: The Solary Cup, The T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Invitational, which Gen.G managed to win, just after they had announced their roster, and the Mandatory Cup, where we saw fish123 dominate the whole event.
With regards to a tournament calendar, you can find it here on esportsguide website.
Organizations that entered Valorant
A lot of organizations had very high interest in joining Valorant early, to get the best roster in the quickest way possible, some of these top organizations were, T1 Esports, Cloud9, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Sentinels. As of recent times, more big organizations have joined the esport with their very own rosters, some them are: TSM, which have picked up the MouseSpaz roster, Godsent and Dignitas with their female rosters, and ForZe, being the only CIS roster to get picked up so far.
Best rosters at the moment?
There are many rosters that have shown extreme potential since the release of the closed beta, however some teams stand out more than others, especially teams in the North American and European region.
A squad that has definitely outshined most of the other teams is Fish123, a UK based roster which is completely dominating the Valorant scene. Some recent achievements they have achieved are, 1st Place in the Mandatory Cup, and 1st in the Solary Cup. The two biggest tournaments with regards to prize pool and competition.
Overall, the future for Valorant is looking very bright, especially in terms of its esport potential. We’ll just have to wait and see how the game progresses after release, and if it manages to reach the community’s expectations.