With another year drawing rapidly to a close, The Game Awards has once more handed out honours to the most impactful games, players, and people sustaining the gaming and eSports industry. Streamed live from LA’s Microsoft Theatre on December 7th, the event awarded the best eSports athlete, best indie game, best mobile game, and more. While winners included JD Gaming, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Forza Motorsport, the big eSports award of the night, Best Esports Game, went to none other than VALORANT.
To keen gamers, this news won’t come as much of a shock, as Riot’s groundbreaking FPS has been one of the most impactful games of the decade since its release in 2020. However, if you’re not clued up on what’s hot and what’s not in eSports, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. Allow us to enlighten you…
What is Valorant?
From the same development company that brought global gamers the quintessential MOBA, League of Legends, Valorant is at its core a tactical FPS game. It follows a 5 v 5 team-based format, where gamers play as an Agent in teams of five (duh!). Gamers can choose from a diverse range of characters, including well-crafted female agents as well as agents being the LGBTQ+ spectrum.
Despite only being on the scene for a handful of years, Valorant has become quite the game-changer!
It all started in April 2020, when a title codenamed “Project A” began a closed beta testing period. This was no ordinary beta launch, however! No, Riot tapped into the power of streaming to broadcast Day 1 of its closed beta launch to Twitch viewers.
The excitement surrounding the game meant Riot almost broke the concurrent viewership record at that time, pulling in over 1.7 million viewers on Twitch. When VALORANT officially launched two months later June 2, 2020, the global gaming community couldn’t wait to get their virtual paws on it — especially since, like LoL before it, the title was (and remains) a free-to-play game.
Almost at once, Valorant was favourably compared to eSports titans like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve) and Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch — high praise indeed for such a young upstart. To paraphrase Arnar Hrafn Gylfason, Riot’s senior game director, the company set out to develop the best competitive shooter they could, believing the rest would fall into place.
And fall into place it did! Players went wild for Valorant’s engaging gameplay and adrenaline-fuelled action, making it one of the most downloaded games of the pandemic period.
Making its Mark on eSports
Following such a memorable launch and with its natural prestige from being a Riot Games title, it didn’t take long for Valorant to appear on the pro eSports circuit.
Attracting the world’s top eSports teams and a huge fan base looking to engage with Valorant betting on championship games, the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) was launched in 2020 and continues to be a highlight on the global pro gaming calendar. Not only did this event set up itself as a peak competitive event for the title, but it didn’t take long for the VCT to develop a reputation as being one of the top S Tier pro tourneys in the entire eSports realm.
Since then, of course, the game has made its way into many other eSports events, including Riot’s Indian tournament Convergence, the One Pro Invitational, Red Bull’s Campus Clutch, and the ESL Clash of Nations. Alongside the VCT, Riot set up the VCT Game Changers for women and non-binary players — itself also an S Tier event. During the summer of 2023, the game even set up a new paradigm for British eSports as the central event for EE and EXCEL ESPORTS’ first-ever all-women pro gaming tournament in the UK.
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Conquering the Mobile Realm
Dominating PC and console eSports evidently hasn’t been enough for team Valorant, as the gaming world is now locked in eager anticipation of Riot’s upcoming move into the mobile eSports market. Mobile gaming is already the industry’s most popular segment, generating over half of gaming’s annual revenues, while mobile eSports is a rapidly growing market that is expected to surpass $5.4 billion by the end of the decade (according to Statista). At present, the biggest games in the sector are PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, and Clash Royale, but Valorant’s foray into the scene will no doubt disrupt the rankings.
Valorant Mobile is currently undergoing closed beta testing in China and at the time of writing Riot Games is keeping details about its release date close to their chest. However, an intrepid data miner going by the X (formerly Twitter) handle @SargeOP_ leaked that a fully accessible beta version of Valorant Mobile could hit our devices before the close of Jan 2024.
Rumours even abound about 2024 being the year that Riot launches its Valorant Mobile Global Championship, which could run alongside the VCT. According to insiders in the gaming community in China, severaleSports’ organisations in the region are currently in preparations for the event, including teams like Wolves, Ag Fox, and Q9. This stays speculation at this stage, but we have a feeling the coming year will soon bring some solid announcements from Riot’s press office!
