Valorant is coming to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S as soon as next week with a limited beta test. Riot Games announced these long-awaited ports for its competitive hero shooter during Summer Game Fest 2024. Notably, while Valorant on consoles will feature cross-progression, it won’t have crossplay.
The lack of crossplay may come as a disappointment to some players who hope to party up with their friends on PC; Riot Games says that it made this decision “to maintain Valorant’s standard for competitive integrity.” It wouldn’t be fair for those with a controller to face off against players using a keyboard and mouse to control the game, after all. It also wouldn’t make sense because Riot Games is not only adapting Valorant’s control scheme for the Xbox and PlayStation controllers but reworking some gameplay features as well. Namely, it added a new feature called Focus that makes hip-fire feel more precise on a controller. Valorant Production Director Arnar Gylfason elaborated on this in a comment provided to Tech Reader.
“When adapting any features for consoles, our goal was to provide the Valorant moment on a new platform. That meant not simply adapting the input method but ensuring that the experience stays true to the original. We achieved this through multiple iterations, analyzing how problems were solved by other games and, most importantly, getting player feedback — a lot of player feedback. We were also very excited to create the best competitive experience for controllers. This required changes to the game to ensure that it feels right and fair on consoles, so we included new features like Focus where needed, adapted Agent abilities, and many others to deliver that goal. With these improvements, other changes had to be made, including not allowing PC to Console cross-play, all to ensure that we maintain Valorant standard for competitive integrity.”
Thankfully, Valorant will feature cross-progression and a shared player inventory across PC and consoles. All future patches and updates will also happen simultaneously across PC and consoles as well. If you want to try Valorant on PS5 or Xbox Series X/S, you can sign up to playtest the ports on the game’s official website right now.
The first limited beta tests will begin in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, and Japan on June 14. Betas in more regions and a wide release on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S will eventually follow.
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