Skip to main content

Valorant beta to soon add Competitive mode, with eight ranks and no decay

Riot Games will soon add competitive play to the ongoing Valorant closed beta, with the developer explaining how the long-awaited mode will work for the upcoming multiplayer shooter.

Valorant‘s Competitive mode will be rolled out after patch 0.49, starting with North America and Europe, according to a post on the game’s official website.

Recommended Videos

Riot Games revealed that Valorant players will first need to complete 20 matches in Unrated mode in order to unlock Competitive mode, which will feature eight ranks. The first seven ranks, namely Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Immortal, will each have three tiers, while the eighth and topmost rank, aptly named Valorant, will only have one tier.

Winning games will be the most important factor in gaining ranks, though personal performance in matches will also be taken into account. On the other hand, losing games and performing poorly will reduce a player’s rank. Competitive mode will also consider how decisively teams win or lose, which gives players the added incentive of stretching their lead further if they are winning, as well as to try their best to close the gap, at the very least, if they are losing.

Competitive mode allows players to queue up for matches with friends, but all five players in the team should be within two ranks of each other.

Players who find themselves out of time to play Competitive mode after 14 days will render their account inactive and have their ranks hidden. However, upon their return their ranks will again be displayed. There will be no artificial decay on ranks though, so players are free to take breaks from competitive play as often and as long as they want.

Valorant closed beta

It is rare to see a developer releasing patches for a closed beta, but it has so far helped Riot Games prepare the multiplayer shooter for its summer launch. For Competitive mode, it may be disabled for short periods of time throughout the closed beta as Riot Games refines it, according to player feedback.

While in closed beta, Riot Games has offered up to $100,000 for security researchers to help find holes in Vanguard, Valorant‘s anti-cheat system. The developer has also released e-sports tournament guidelines for the multiplayer shooter, including the order to switch off blood.

Aaron Mamiit
Aaron received an NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was four years old, and he has been fascinated…
I’m finally turning into a Valorant fan thanks to its Xbox port
Key art for Valorant on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Although I've followed and played a bit of Valorant over the years as I've covered it, I've never fully taken the plunge and gotten into Riot Games' intense hero shooter competitively. I simply don't like playing first-person shooters on PC. I understand that's a somewhat odd take because using a mouse and keyboard gives players such precise control, but I grew up playing Call of Duty games on a console rather than a PC. I could take the time to really learn and get used to mouse-and-keyboard controls for a game like Valorant, but it's so competitive, and proper teamwork is such a critical factor that it is too intimidating of a game to practice my PC skills in.

That's why I was grateful when I learned Riot Games was finally bringing Valorant to consoles with some major adjustments. Announced at Summer Game Fest, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Valorant are on the way and in closed beta testing right now. Riot granted me access to the Xbox beta, and after playing some more Valorant on Xbox Series X, I can tell I'm starting to get hooked. Valorant is a tightly designed competitive shooter, and the control tweaks Riot made to make it work on a controller feel great. I don't have to worry about competing with PC players using a mouse and keyboard either, just players who are already really good at the game with a controller.

Read more
Valorant is coming to consoles but won’t have crossplay
Key art for Valorant on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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 Digital Trends.

Read more
Valorant’s next agent can use some of their abilities after dying
Key art for the Valorant agent Clove.

Riot Games has revealed Clove, the next agent that will come to Valorant as part of Episode 8, Act II. This character brings some pretty awesome "post-death" abilities that give players a way to fight back after getting killed, continuing the trend of Riot adding game-changing new agents to Valorant.

Clove is a nonbinary immortal from Scotland that fits into Valorant's Controller archetype. Clove being immortal plays into their abilities, as some of them work from beyond the grave. One of those is Ruse, which lets Clove set up clouds that block the vision lines of other players anywhere on the map; this can be done during active gameplay or after death.

Read more