Riot Games Announced Valorant for Mobile

Valorant, the tactical first-person shooter, just celebrated its first anniversary, and Riot Games has announced that the title will be coming to mobile platforms as well.

The announcement didn’t have too many details about the game’s launch or how it will play on mobile devices, but Executive Producer Anna Donlon did share some details about the project.

According to her, the decision to expand into mobile categories began with a checklist of questions about what was core to Valorant and whether it could be accomplished on mobile. If even one of the items on the checklist weren’t met, Riot Games would not have gone ahead with the decision to go ahead with the project.

The most important thing for her and the team is not to deliver a compromised version of Valorant to mobile players. The idea was not to have a simple PC-to-mobile port but for the mobile version to be a completely unique experience.

We didn’t start out with ‘We’re making Valorant on mobile,’ we started out with ‘Can we make Valorant on mobile?’ with a lot of skepticism. 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.

Anna Donlon, Executive Producer

She didn’t detail what differences we can expect to see on the mobile version of Valorant, but she did stress that it would in no way affect the PC version of the game.

The same way that we’re not going to deliver a subpar mobile experience for mobile players, we’re not going to compromise the PC experience either. We’re not trying to convert Valorant PC players into Valorant Mobile players or vice versa. […] We’re absolutely just as committed to keeping the PC experience at the quality level it is or higher, and we’re not going to compromise it in order to address the mobile market.

Anna Donlon, Executive Producer

Donlon also clarified that the team aims to give each platform the best experience and that there were no plans for a cross-play between the mobile and PC versions of the game.

Riot is also planning to create a console version of the game sometime in the future, but it’s just a plan for now. They are currently focused on the mobile version of Valorant, as they feel it turned out to be a more natural fit for the game.

Oddly enough, I actually do think the transition to mobile has been slightly easier for us. Console’s obvious for FPS, right? […] But this type of game, a tactical shooter, on console is not easy. It’s not easy to have that level of competitive integrity on a platform where the controller is fighting you for that. And we just didn’t want it. […] So we found it took to mobile quicker and it took to mobile easier.

Anna Donlon, Executive Producer

We don’t have any release dates yet as Donlon said they aren’t ready to give any confirmed schedule about a release, but that we should be able to see it in “year two.”

About Valorant

Valorant is a free-to-play first-person tactical shooter developed and published by Riot Games. The game has a competitive player base and currently runs on Unreal Engine 4.

The game is set on a near-future Earth and features a cast of characters known as Agents, each of which have their own unique set of abilities to create tactical opportunities. Ten players are divided into two teams, Attackers and Defenders, with the goal of winning the most rounds. Players have access to a number of in-game weapons, shields and abilities which they can purchase before the start of every game.