Summary
- Valorant is live now and free-to-play for everyone on Xbox Series X|S.
- Regular balance patches are essential to creating a highly competitive landscape – especially for tactical shooters.
- Valorant on Console receives the same regular balance updates that PC players experience – patches every two weeks.
Valorant is now live on Xbox Series X|S– with some serious benefits for Game Pass members. So grab four of your friends and hop into our 5v5 tactical shooter where you’ll need creative strategy, effective communication, and clutch aim to climb up the ranks.
But launch is only the beginning for Valorant on console – here’s how we’ll be supporting the game going forward.
Our Philosophy
Riot Games was founded with the idea that competition should be enjoyable at any level – whether it’s your first Valorant Competitive game after hitting level 20 or you’re grinding to Radiant, competing in our games should feel fair. Competitive integrity is at the heart of everything we do, and it’s one element that sets Valorant apart from other shooters on console.
One thing we’ve learned after 4+ years of Valorant on PC is that y’all are pretty cracked. The Valorant playerbase constantly innovates around the meta and comes up with new strats that surprise even us. Players consistently find new ability synergy between Agents, new line-ups, new flank watches, new ways to use a weapon, better smoke placements – you get the picture. Honestly, we love to see it. And now we’re so excited to welcome the console community into that space and see what you’ll come up with next.
Because of the ever-changing landscape, we’re constantly monitoring how our maps, Agents, weapons, and abilities are performing across different skill levels.
Sometimes an Agent might skew too powerful as players learn and master their abilities. Or maybe a map becomes one-sided as teams figure out how to optimize Agent utility. Or maybe a certain weapon becomes too strong as players hone their aim and learn how to better synergize with Agent abilities.
Over time, seemingly small imbalances can make a game start to feel stale and predictable. And that’s just not Valorant.
What That Means for Players
So, what does all this mean for the game long term? For our devs, it means their work is never done. For our players who aren’t familiar, it means live service and live balance.
We put out patches every two weeks across all platforms to address things like game balance, bug fixes, or QoL improvements. And a few times per year, we release larger updates to an Agent’s entire kit when there’s an opportunity to bolster or tamp down their strength. These kinds of updates typically aren’t needed very often and will only be implemented at a time that won’t affect active Pro play schedules.
So far, since Limited Beta started on console two months ago, Valorant has already seen four patch updates. We’re updating the game frequently, but paying attention to the unique needs of each platform. Balance parity between PC and console isn’t necessarily guaranteed.
Why? While the level of competition and skill-expression is the same for Valorant on PC and console, the game needs to be balanced independently between platforms. With different input methods (controller vs. mouse and keyboard) comes different playstyles. Some Agents shine on console but aren’t as effective on PC and vice versa. So our game developers have to test each extensively and adjust only when it makes sense.
Beyond game balance, Valorant features a rotating map pool for Competitive queue to ensure players get more variety while ranking up, and even occasionally to make changes to a map when it’s out of the competitive rotation.
Ultimately, it’s up to you – our passionate community – to let us know how we’re doing and show us how you’d level up the game. We’re so grateful to those of you who helped us prepare for this day by participating in our Limited and Open Beta periods, and we can’t wait to see what you’ll do next. So hop on, queue up, and frag out.
GL HF.
