New Kid On The Block ‘Valorant’ Opens Up Closed Beta For More Players After Successes

Riot has now announced that they’re making it easier for players to gain access to the closed beta of their latest tactical shooter, Valorant. Now, all Twitch streamers who have access to the game can drop beta access keys, as long as those streamers playing are actively live streaming the game, and turn on the in-game drops feature.

Previously, only select Twitch streamers could drop these beta access keys, so it’s a welcome implementation especially after the massive success and interest the game has garnered. Riot also mentioned in their blog post, they’re they’ve gone through thousands of the most engaged Twitch users watching Valorant streams, and manually gave them access. “Thank you, your internet, and your eyeballs” lead produce Anna Donlon and game director Joe Ziegler said in the blog post.

Another measure they’ve taking for the eventual increase of players, is they’ve increased the closed beta server loads by 25 percent to meet demands.

Valorant, for those unaware, is Riot Games’s latest tactical shooter, which seems like an amalgamation of Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. There’s various ‘agents’, who have ultimate abilities as well as other sub-class related abilities, but you face off in a 5v5 Counter-Strike style game. It also borrows Counter-strikes game mode, where you buy weapons and abilities every round, till one team reaches 13 rounds won. It’s an interesting concept, and I’m excited to see where it goes, especially for e-Sports.

As of late, Valorant even broke single-day watch records with 34 million hours watched, second only to Riot’s League of Legends. So, clearly, there’s quite a bit of interest in the game. That being said, let’s see how this goes, but clearly, Valorant has the making to be the next big thing in gaming.

Also, just to remind you, these drops are applicable to players in Europe, Canada, United States, Turkey, Russia and CIS countries. This is based off your Riot account’s home-based region, which you can check here. You’ll then be able to see what is listed under the country/region.

If you’re in a region that doesn’t yet have a closed beta, Riot Games assures they’re ‘moving as fast as possible’ to open up the closed beta to new regions, with Brazil, LATAM and Korea in their sights with no confirmation dates yet.

Comment what you think!