‘Valorant’ Will Receive Mobile Counterpart
Valorant will be heading to mobile phones, Riot Games announced Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of the game’s release on PC.
Many details were left unknown in the announcement. Riot did not divulge the release date, the systems for which it will be available, or any specific gameplay details. The game will be called Valorant Mobile and will differ from the PC version in some ways.
“We’re thrilled to soon offer the same competitive Valorant experience to even more global players,” said Anna Donlon, the Executive Producer of Valorant.
Donlon also commented on the decision to go mobile. “We didn’t start out with ‘We’re making Valorant on mobile,’ we started out with ‘can we make Valorant on mobile?'” Donlon said. “For us, whatever you get out of playing on PC, you should get out of playing Valorant on mobile. But we have to recognize that the mobile player need is different.”
Although Donlon highlighted that the mobile version would be different, she also assured the media that it would not impact the experience of the PC variety of the game.
Valorant has seen measurable success in the year since its launch. The game clocks in over 13 million players each month. Many Valorant tournaments have garnered monster viewership, with the largest and most recent tournament collecting an audience of around one million people.
Riot Games recently added a mobile companion to their flagship game League of Legends. This mobile version was called Wild Rift and released earlier in the year. Wild Rift changed many features of the game, with a focus on making it more approachable to newcomers.
Other shooters such as Fortnite, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Call of Duty have seen great success with mobile installments as well.
Riot will attempt to bolster the brand of Valorant and broaden its reach. This mobile version seems to be the first step along that path.