Riot Games recently announced it’s bringing its tactical shooter Valorant to mobile devices. We don’t know exactly when this is happening, or to what devices it’ll be coming, but we do know that Valorant is now the latest shooter aiming to capture the mobile audience. Riot also announced details about the main game’s success on the anniversary of its original release.
The detail was when Riot Games also revealed more details about Valorant’s first-year success. According to Riot, the game attracted more than 14 million active players in the year, with momentum slowly climbing after the usual post-launch dip. To celebrate, the company plans to have a month-long celebration in-game, with several goodies like cosmetics and charity events happening within the next few weeks.
As for the mobile port, we don’t know when it’ll launch or where. However, Anna Donlon, Valorant’s executive producer, told Polygon that the company is determined that the game should be tailored for mobile players: “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.” Given how successful other games have been on mobile — just look at Genshin Impact or Call of Duty Mobile — it’s no surprise that Riot is trying to hop on that trend.
Donlon also added that PC players wouldn’t be affected by the new 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.” There are no plans for crossplay between the two versions. She added that the game was actually easier to port the game to mobile than console: “Oddly enough, I actually do think the transition to mobile has been slightly easier for us.”
Source: Polygon