Riot Games confirms a summer release date for Valorant, its competitive first person shooter. Over the last week, screenshots of Valorant have leaked online, and now Riot has officially revealed the game and several of its characters.

In a new trailer, Riot Games confirmed that Valorant would be available in summer 2020. On the game's official site, Riot confirms that it will be holding a closed beta for the game but doesn't say when this will be. Esports leaker Rod Breslau has revealed that Riot plans to hold an event with professional gamers and streamers between March 10-12 where it may film promos to promote the beta. This means that the beta may only be a few weeks away.

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There's also potential that Riot will raise the barriers early like it did with its other new game, Legends of Runeterra. It had planned to hold a closed beta for the game in early 2020 but after so many fans showed excitement for Legends of Runeterra, Riot turned this into an open beta and gave everyone access months before fans had expected.

Riot will likely need this beta to show everyone that Valorant is more than just a strange mix of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's map style with Overwatch's hero abilities. These games are hugely popular and as CS:GO is now free to play and Blizzard may be releasing Overwatch 2 this year, it could be difficult for Valorant to break into the market. Giving people a chance to play it for themselves will allow fans to find out just how this game is different and if they should spend any time trying to get good at it.

The beta will also allow Riot to make some important changes to the game before release. Riot knows how to buff and nerf characters in League of Legends and it will now need to apply that with a new set of characters in Valorant. With fewer players enjoying Valorant and telling Riot which skills need to be nerfed and buffed that becomes more difficult, but the beta should be a huge help.

It's unclear how successful Valorant will be and if the free to play game can make as many billions as League of Legends. However, the response to the new trailer does seem to be positive and many seem to be hoping to see more about the game in the next few weeks and months.

Valorant will be released in summer 2020 on PC.

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