VALORANT Kicks Off 5-Year Anniversary with Major GameUpdates and Community Celebrations Across NorthernEurope

WHAT:
To mark five years of global tactical shooter sensation VALORANT, Riot Games is rolling out an
exciting combination of in-game updates and in-person celebrations across Northern Europe
through its Riot Play Club initiative.
Players can look forward to a wave of developer updates in Patch 11.00—addressing ability
balance, anti-smurfing measures, and a new Unreal Engine 5 upgrade—while also connecting
with fellow fans at free community events from June 7–18 in the UK, Ireland, and Nordics.

COMMUNITY CELEBRATIONS – RIOT PLAY CLUB (JUNE 7–18):

VALORANT fans across Northern Europe are invited to celebrate the anniversary in person at
Riot Play Club events— local meetups filled with themed activities, exclusive swag, and
unforgettable community vibes.
Where to Join the Celebration:

UNITED KINGDOM
● London: Razer Store (June 7), Platform Shoreditch & New Meta (June 10), GiantX
London (June 11)
● Manchester: Pixel Bar (June 11)
● Durham: Durham University (June 13 – students only)
● Warwick: Warwick Esports Centre (June 7)

IRELAND
● Cork: National Esports Centre (June 13)

NORDICS
● Oslo, Norway: Eldorado (June 14 @ 15:00 CEST)
● Jyväskylä, Finland: Exen Esports (June 18 @ 16:00 EEST)
● Stockholm, Sweden: Join VALORANT festivities at Comic Con Stockholm ( May 31-
June 1st separate from Play Club events)

Dates subject to change—check with local venues.
IN-GAME, Dev Updates: Ability Balance, Smurfing and More
Today, VALORANT addressed several player updates, including ability balance, smurfing, a new
map incentive and more.

As part of the ongoing anniversary celebrations, VALORANT will be launching a special free event pass
that calls back to fun moments from the past as well as the 5 Years // Beta Remastered Capsule that
brings players all the way back to the early days of beta with the return of a coveted Knife, a new reactive
buddy and an animated player card.

Below is a summary of the developer updates.

Ability Balance
● We’re using VALORANT’s 5th year to take a more holistic look at the game, and examine some of
those spaces we’ve tried to disrupt—or where some abilities are in terms of tuning. \
● We’re iterating in areas like the overall power and counterplay potential for debuffs, ultimates that
hit the entire site, and also addressing abilities that just feel below our counterplay bar.
● We’ve already started some of this work with things like the minimap updates, Brimstone’s molly
audio, Raze’s explosion visuals, visual tells for the health state of Deadlock’s Barrier Mesh, and
we’re committing to continuing this kind of work and rolling out these changes regularly.
● We’ll continue to monitor how VAL is being played along with all of your feedback. We’re confident
that the changes we’re making now and some of the things we’re exploring for after Champs will
ensure that we’re maintaining VAL’s core balance between gunplay and abilities. No spoilers though!

New Map Incentive
● With Patch 11.00, we’re bringing the new map to Competitive queue – day 1.
● Most players are engaging with the new map for the first time in Competitive already, and we
want to better support learning the map in the competitive environment right away.
● So during the first patch cycle—which is two weeks—RR losses on the new map will be reduced
by 50%. Don’t worry – you’ll still earn the full 100% when you win.

Player Behavior & Smurfing
● We’re increasing the barrier to sharing accounts, starting with Multi-Factor Authentication.
● Our plan is to require MFA – something like app or SMS verification – primarily for suspicious
cases, and we’re looking into it for all Competitive accounts.
● Our goal is to have more clarity and guardrails around WHO is playing on an account. We’re
planning to launch this year, with more specific details to come.
● Launching later this year, we’re adding more visibility into your behavior standing in the game.
Here’s what we’re planning for it to look like – you can see any active warnings or penalties
on your account along with what penalties may be coming next if you don’t shape up.

Competitive
● If you’ve been looking for a way to rep your squad across VAL, check out Premier in 11.00, Team
Tags are coming for players who participate in Weekly Matches – and – we’re adding a sick way
to recognize those that manage to win the Playoff Tournament.
● And at the highest peak of competition, we’ve got one more update as we lead into Masters
Toronto, Pick’Ems are returning! We loved the reception and conversation around Pick’Ems at
Champions Seoul and we will be bringing it to all Masters and Champions events from here on
out!

UE5
● We’ve been building VALORANT in Unreal 4 for well over 10 years, and the time is right to
upgrade to Unreal 5! Coming soon in patch 11.02 around the end of July.
● The patch on release day will be a significantly large download to change the engine out, so we
really appreciate your patience. In the short term, we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure
that the upgrade doesn’t disrupt your gameplay, so the game’s overall look, feel, and all your
crazy lineups should still be similar.

● The patch will, however, come with changes that will improve framerate performance, make patch
downloads faster in the future, and there will also be a special gun buddy to commemorate the
occasion for everyone that logs in while the 11.02 patch is still live!
Replays
● Replays will be going live on PC with patch 11.06 in September, with Replays going to Console a
bit later this year.
● The launch version will enable you to analyze your recently played games on the live
patch—starting with your competitive games, and we’ll be looking into other modes as we
go.

VALORANT Esports
● The first cycle of team partnerships concludes at the end of next year, giving us a unique
opportunity to make larger changes at the start of 2027.
● The first goal is more openness. While partnership will remain a key component of our design, we
want the VCT to be a bit more open, better bridging the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2, between
professional and community tournaments, and giving more teams the opportunity to compete at
bigger stages.
● The second goal is more flexibility. We want to design a system that gives us a wider variety of
competitions, formats, and event locations across the globe.
● And our third goal is to create more ecosystem moments. Events like Masters and Champions have
been incredibly valuable because they allow us to bring together all things that make VALORANT
special: the game, the sport, the community, the culture. While we think the number of global
events is still appropriate, we’re looking to create more moments like that, especially at a regional
level.