Valorant Mobile has seemingly been the next direction for the game for quite some time now. Fans haven’t gotten much information except that the game is on its way, but the internet has its ways of uncovering information that’s not supposed to be found – in fact, Valorant’s own update schedule looks like it’s gearing up for a release in 2023, a year that Valorant itself supported.
Here’s everything we know from leaks, rumors and potential release dates around Valorant Mobile.
Valorant Mobile Confirmed by Riot
In 2021, Valorant Mobile was confirmed by the Riot devs as part of the one-year anniversary celebration for the FPS game. Later that year, a Polygon interview with Valorant Executive Producer Anna Donlon added some more details to the announcement, explaining that the team only moved forward with the mobile game because it knew that it could deliver a full version of the game to mobile players.
Donlon went on to say that, while the team needs the game to feel cohesive between the two platforms, the two games will be held to high standards on their respective markets. This idea coupled with the fact that different platforms require different needs has shut down the idea of cross-platform play between the two versions of the game.
Is there a Valorant Mobile Release Date?
The interview ended with the hope that Valorant Mobile would come out within a year two of the game’s initial release, which would’ve been between July 2021 and July 2022. That didn’t happen, but the idea is that Donlon had that release time because it was an obtainable goal for developers. Many people are now estimating that the game will come out in early 2023 for that reason.
Valorant Mobile Leaks and Rumors
There have been a plethora of so-called leaks with information or gameplay of Valorant Mobile so far. Some of these have even come from prominent data miners such as ValorLeaks, who showed off some early in-game screenshots in April 2022.
Among the leaks, there have been a few things that seemed true and circulated among several major accounts. On September 18, 2022, @ValorantMNews and @ValorantMBIntel showed off different screenshots of the game that supposedly came from the Google Play Store. Specifically, @ValorantMNews claimed that the game is being tested. Of course, participants would be under an NDA, but considering both accounts had different screenshots makes the leak feel a bit more valid.
One of the biggest hints that Valorant Mobile is on the way is the fact that Valorant itself just got some major visual changes in Episode Five, Act Three, which is set to release on October 18. The changes were all to simplify the UX/UI of the PC game, but there are some suspicious similarities between Valorant and another mobile game from Riot, Wild Rift.
For example, the after-game screen was changed to show off the player’s team with the Agents standing around, which is the same way that Wild Rift looks after completing a game. Some of the changes included more 2D models being utilized in the game’s various menus instead of the constantly moving 3D settings that the game has used since it was released.
In fact, the blog post about the update explained that the changes were made to “better prepare [Valorant] for a more consistent look and functionality as we work towards future platform experiences.”