Riot Games’ Valorant, the studio’s foray into the realm of competitive FPS games, has been given a closed beta start date. Come April 7 at 6 a.m. PST, PC players will get to dive into the 5v5 character-based tactical shooter for an unspecified amount of time, with Riot saying it’s ready to take the “first step toward building a global community.” The company announced that the closed beta will only be available to registered players in Europe, Canada, the United States, Turkey, Russia, and CIS countries, so make sure to follow the signup instructions found in the announcement post. More regions are planned to roll out eventually, with Riot citing “the volatile logistics of launching a beta effectively during a global pandemic” as a major roadblock in taking that step.
Closed beta begins April 7 with EU and NA. More regions to come as we deploy server infrastructure. Learn how to get in line: https://t.co/Q13KQImW03 pic.twitter.com/hp2hT3EXyR
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) March 30, 2020
Progress made during the Valorant closed beta will not carry over into the full release, but as thanks for testing out an early version of the game, Valorant Points purchased will be returned with an additional 20 percent bonus for the final release.
Riot Games uploaded gameplay footage at the start of the month to tide you over until April 7.
The developer laid out a collection of plans for its future titles last year, including Valorant, which had the codename of Project A at the time. Since then, the company has let everyone know that it plans to release the game in summer 2020.
