It's More or Less Confirmed, Valorant is Coming to Consoles
We could be seeing Riot’s competitive shooter in consoles soon.
Since its release in 2020, Valorant has been a PC-exclusive title. But now, it looks like that’s about to change. When 2022 started, multiple sources cited that Valorant was on its way to consoles; however, there was always little to no evidence to their claims. Now, it looks like we’re in for the real deal. Based on a new job posting by Riot Games, console players can make Valorant accounts in the future. We’ve seen plenty of hints that suggest the game is already on its way to consoles, but the job listings make the intention of the devs crystal clear.
Riot Looks for Talent
Riot Games published a job post via Hitmarker this late November 2022; they’re looking for a senior game designer for their hit FPS game, Valorant. According to their post, the senior game designer they’re looking for must design and refine systems, features, and modes to help bring console products to the gaming market. Other responsibilities include playtesting games to improve the designs and prototypes of the company offerings, such as Valorant skins. We’ve yet to see Riot’s online games in the console realm, but they have several single-player games, such as Ruined King: A League of Legends Story and Hextech Mayhem, available on the Nintendo Switch. You could argue that the term “console products” could mean other standalone games besides Valorant, but perhaps this other job posting could confirm your suspicions.
Previously the week before their job post for a senior game designer, they made another job vacancy. This time around, they’re looking for a game design manager. The posting offered more specific details, and it mentioned that the new hire would collaborate with the design team to work on “a vision for combat” in Valorant for consoles. It also states that whoever will be the game design manager would have to uphold the design principles of the PC version of Valorant and transform it into a tactical shooter worthy of being played on consoles. If that’s not a dead giveaway that we’re getting Valorant on consoles soon, then we don’t know what is.
Late to the Party
Valorant isn’t the first tactical shooter with a sizeable esports community to push for a console version. We already have the likes of Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Rainbow: Six Siege on the PlayStation and Xbox. But when the time comes that Valorant does go on consoles, it’ll be Riot Games’ first title to receive a version outside of PC and mobile. Over the ten years Riot has existed as a company, they have yet to wade into the console waters, making this step crucial.
It’s unclear for now as to whether Valorant would be exclusive to one console. Still, we’re betting on the idea that the competitive online FPS could come to most consoles on the market—save for the Nintendo Switch, with the main reason being that it might not be able to handle it. But then again, we just got Overwatch 2 on there, so it depends on how much effort Riot Games would be putting into porting an underpowered but playable version of Valorant.
While we did say that it’s plausible that Valorant could come to all consoles, it’s also possible for Riot to just release it on one exclusive: the Xbox. The main reason behind this is that earlier this year, the Xbox showcase revealed that the Xbox Game Pass would be working together with Riot to unlock special perks for players. These perks include automatically unlocking every champion for League of Legends, claiming all sorts of card packs from Legends of Runeterra, and having access to all agents (including future releases) in Valorant. It’s worth considering that Riot might consider these benefits a stepping stone for what they’re about to do next. Still, we hope they release the game on all consoles instead of gatekeeping it to a specific console platform.
Do We Have A Release Date?
Unfortunately, there’s no release date provided for when gamers would be able to create Valorant accounts on their console. Furthermore, we have very little information to go about Valorant’s development besides that they’re looking for people who specialize in bringing the shooter to controller users. Since the two job hires suggest that the development is still in its early stages, it’s understandable that Riot Games doesn’t want to spill the tea just yet. We can expect more details down the line, either later this year or early next year, regarding when we’ll finally have Valorant available for the Xbox Series S/X, PlayStation 4/5, and the Nintendo Switch.
