Valorant Closed Beta Begins In April

Riot Games has announced that it is running a closed beta for Valorant, the upcoming PvP FPS from the League of Legends studio. Valorant’s closed beta will operate in Europe, Canada, the United States, Russia, and Turkey, and may roll out into further territories depending on current developments based on the COVID-19 pandemic. It will begin on April 7. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/19/valorant-sova-reveal-trailer"] Riot is running Valorant’s closed beta in collaboration with Twitch, and you’ll need both a Riot account and Twitch account to take part. You’ll need to link your accounts, and when the closed beta goes live you’ll need to watch Valorant streams highlighted by Twitch. Watching these provides “the opportunity to be entitled for Closed Beta access” according to a press release from Riot. It appears that watching the streams is not a guarantee of access to the beta. So far there is no word on when or if the beta will transition from a closed to an open format, but many games open up their betas in the weeks or months leading up to full release. Riot intends to launch Valorant this summer, so there is not too long to wait. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/05/valorant-phoenix-agent-reveal"] If you’ve not been keeping up with Valorant, it’s a 5v5 character-based shooter from the creators of League of Legends. Set in a new universe based on Earth, it features Counter-Strike style gun play with hero abilities similar to the likes of Overwatch. It will be free-to-play when it launches, and will feature ten different Agents to play as to begin with. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter.