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Valorant Console: Is Valorant coming to Console?
After the Valorant Mobile in Alpha testing, Riot has started exploring options for Valorant Console. Riot has already posted an opening for Design Engineers to tackle the Valorant mechanics on the console. Along with the console design team, Valorant is actively looking for mobile developers. This is to ensure the Valorant mobile starts with a bang.
Multi-platform Valorant - A not-so-distant future:
Valorant is already catering to a wider variety of audiences. With its initiatives to promote multiple facets of society, be it the Women in the Game Changers initiative or Collegiate programs, Riot Games is genuinely taking steps to be a global name not limited to a single part of society.
The success of the recent Valorant Champions 2022 and VCT Game Changers Championship 2022 proves that Valorant's audience is not just global, but also the demographic is much wider when compared to traditional tact-fps games. We can understand Valorant's success from the fact that the recent Valorant Champions 2022 bundle raised $32 Million. Valorant sold 260k+ Valorant Champion 2022 bundles to make the money.
After a successful PC launch of the game, Riot moved to the biggest gaming market in Mobile Gaming. Valorant Mobile that will bring the tactical hero shooter to the mobile market. The development of the same started in the Q3 of 2021, Valorant Mobile is in Alpha testing. With Beta testing on the horizon, we might get our hands on Valorant Mobile as early as Q2/Q3 of 2023.
The only other gaming market left for Riot was the console .With Riot's PC and Mobile division is starting to catch speed, Riot has finally started looking into the possibilities of Valorant Console. Riot has posted the opening for Game Design Managers for Console on their website.
While this isn't concrete, it is still a possibility yet to be successfully executed. But with Riot taking a step, it might come sooner than later. But the challenge to convert Valorant to a console is a tall task.
Valorant Console - A Great Challenge:
Amongst other challenges, one of the most delicate is the parity between M&K games and console gamers. It is evident that aiming with M&K is much more complicated and allows for extreme precision. The analog stick of the console does not allow for the same precision, which is then tackled with aim-assist. But aim-assist gives an unfair advantage to the console users making a cross-platform version of Valorant, one of the biggest challenges. Moreover, directly converting the movements and mechanics of Valorant, especially for agents like Jett, Skye, Raze, etc., will be very tricky.
If Riot decides to keep the games separate, will there be separate esports? Two independent Valorant Champion Tours will be another question to tackle, and having two individual professional scenes is not practical.
With many questions, this is just the beginning of what Valorant's future holds, and it will be interesting to see how Riot faces the challenges. Riot is surely one of the best developers in the market today and is trying to take steps in the right direction to give a better experience to the end users of Riot Games.
Credits: Riot Games
