The incredibly popular Valorant Closed Beta ended this morning when the servers went offline. So for now, Valorant is dead until June 2. But what did we actually learn in the beta?

The good, the bad and the ugly

Let’s take the time to reflect on what a hurricane the Valorant closed beta has been, both for the Esports scene and for Riot Games as a company. In case you didn’t know, Riot Games was until now only known for their popular MOBA success League of Legends. No one could have expected that they still had some ideas up their sleeve, one of which would take the Esports scene by storm already in beta.

The good

Valorant was first teased in 2019 under a tentative title called Project A. The official announcement of Valorant followed on March 1, 2020 with a gameplay video called “The Round”.

League of Legends fans were curious, CS:GO fans were jumping for joy, and Overwatch fans watched in horror as another game launched into the Esports scene that rivals them. What followed was excitement and immediate comparison to Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which is only natural since one of the game’s designers, Salvatore Garozzo, is a former professional player and map designer for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Moby Francke is a former Valve developer who was an art and character designer for Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2.

Comparisons aside, people were excited. Esports organizations were watching intently to see if it was worth investing in this game, putting money on it and making it something popular. What followed was something unprecedented, which will be discussed below.

Valorant was a bold and good move by Riot Games, who really broke new ground here. Plans for a press preview were canceled, rightfully so, because of COVID-19, so everything was up in the air for Riot, as they had no way of knowing how the beta would be received and, whether their game would be a success or a flop.

On the first day of the beta, over 1.7 million viewers watched Valorant streams on Twitch. This puts it in second place for the highest viewership a game has ever achieved on Twitch.

One of the most entertaining tactical shooters I’ve ever played” – Austen Goslin (Polygon).
The only other game to see more viewers was Riot Games’ League of Legends, which saw its viewership rise to 1.73 million during the 2019 World Championship finals. This was something that had never been seen before, and the enthusiasm continued to grow until it reached its peak when they started to let the public officially participate in the beta, in addition to streamers. From that point, things started to go downhill a bit.

The bad

Excitement was at an all-time high when the Valorant closed beta began on April 7, 2020. Riot Games then revealed how users could sign up. To get a beta key, players had to connect their Riot Games and Twitch accounts, or create them in the first place, and then, by watching streams, have the slim chance of getting a key.

And that was a disaster.

Frustrated players watched day-in and day-out Valorant streams, waiting for the notification that they would get access to the beta. Hours passed, days passed, and in some extreme situations, people waited weeks without receiving a key.

Players were upset.

While key Twitch influencers had previously received keys from Riot Games, Twitch drop rates were beyond ridiculous and some players were even running multiple Twitch tabs simultaneously to increase their chances.

What was once fascination turned into frustration and quickly became anger or fear of missing out. Riot Games responded to the drop situation with countless tweets, videos, and updates after a sustained outcry from the community. It was easily one of the biggest PR disasters Riot Games has ever experienced, especially since it was a brand new IP.

The ugly

As the Valorant Beta was in full swing, a security issue developed. Fans and players noticed that Riot Games’ new anti-cheat software, Vanguard, was running on a kernel driver that could allow access to any individual user’s entire computer system.

To add fuel to the fire, many editors and some media outlets additionally pointed out that Chinese tech giant Tencent owns Riot Games, which sparked conspiracy theories about whether China Valorant could spy on players. Tencent could theoretically analyze and use all the data, but the very fact that Vanguard runs in kernel mode caused controversy. The problem was so serious that Riot Games launched a bug bounty program that rewarded anyone who could prove vulnerabilities in the software.

So, what did we learn? Well, one personal note we’d like to make is that Valorant is very likely to be a massive Esports success, just like its big brother League of Legends. Aside from the issues that have already been fixed or are currently fixed, and some bugs and fixes in the beta version, it has been a huge success. So big, in fact, that many professional players have already turned their backs on their original games to join Valorant teams.

Overwatch

Overwatch is a computer game by Blizzard Entertainment (Diablo 3, World of Warcraft) and a first-person shooter with individual fantasy elements. The game was released in May 2016.

In Overwatch, the player must choose between 21 unique characters, which can be freely selected in a loosely held classification system (offensive and defensive class, support unit and tanks).

A character’s three to four different abilities can be controlled and activated through the mouse and keyboard. The game modes already vary from scoring points to cargo hauling. Team play is required in both modes, as each character takes on a specific role in the battlefield (e.g. heal teammates, provide backup, or secure defensive lines).

The name Overwatch derives itself from a fictional elite military unit that came together when robots tried to subjugate humanity in a near future. Individual characters are associated with this unit in the game, while others oppose it. It is not yet known whether the storyline will continue in multiplayer.

Brawl

Brawl is a game mode in which time-limited rule variations of the well-known modes are drawn. Sometimes completely new game modes are used in Brawls.

Rule variations include, for example, the restriction to certain heroes or classes, changes to the cool-down times or certain cards. New game modes that have been playable so far include a soccer game and a PvE mode.

Usually, Brawls are restarted as Brawl of the Week every Tuesday at 22:00 UTC and are then playable for a week. On certain occasions, such as – Season al events, Brawls may also be playable for a longer or shorter period of time.

The game mode is comparable to the card chaos from Hearthstone and was activated for the first time in the beta phase on March 22, 2016 through a patch.

Actions

• Arcade: More health, shorter skill and ultimate cooldowns, and faster resurrection after death.
• Girl Power: Female heroes only.
• Head’s Up!: McCree, Genji, Hanzo, and Widowmaker. Only head hits count.
• High Noon: High Noon on Route 66, only head hits with McCree count.
• Highly Offensive: Only offensive heroes. Limit is two of the same hero per team.
• Junkenstein’s Revenge: Soldier, Hanzo, Ana, Mc Cree only (1 each). The first co-op PVE mode in Overwatch. Part of the – Season al event Halloween Horror.
• Justice rains from Above: Only Mercy and Pharah playable.
• Moba Watch: Only unique heroes per team. No hero switching allowed.
• Mystery Heroes: Upon death, you will be resurrected as a randomly selected Hero.
• Overly Defensive: Only defensive heroes. Limit is two of the same hero per team.
• Show Your Support: Support Heroes only. The limit is two of the same Hero per team.
• Super Shimada Bros: Welcome to Hanamura. Only Hanzo and Genji are playable. Shorter skill cooldowns, longer ultimate cooldowns.
• Tanks A Lot: Tank heroes only. Limit is two of the same hero per team.
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Only McCree, Reaper and Roadhog playable.
• We’re all Soldiers now: Only Soldier: 76 playable on control cards.
• Lucioball: Lucio only: Soccer mode, 3 vs 3.
• Yeti Hunt: Five meis against a yeti that has the characteristics of Winston.

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