
Does Valorant have a future as an esport?
Riot Games recently dropped the beta for the long-awaited and heavily hyped first person-shooter (FPS), Valorant. Since day 1 it has been made clear by the developers that the game is hyper focused towards esports and offering the most fluid, competitive gameplay experience possible.
What is Valorant
Valorant is a free-to-play multiplayer games dedicated to a competitive environment. It will be a 5v5 character-based tactical FPS with an emphasis on precise gunplay meeting unique agent abilities.
Riot Games have started well in regard to get community feedback and applying it where possible. Considering the success League of Legends has had as an esports, we can expect to see a similar level of success with Valorant if Riot keep up the same standards in both.
Its first taste as an esports
Whilst the entire beta is being played in a competitive match making format, it doesn’t always give a true idea of how it will be played out. Esports organisation 100 Thieves hosted the first ever Valorant tournament this past week.
The 100 Thieves Invitational
The 100 Thieves Invitational took place on April 14th and featured eight teams divided into two groups of four. There was a single round robin format in groups and a single elimination bracket afterwards. The final was played out as a Best of 3, giving us a real taster of it’s potential as an esport.
The tournament consisted of a mix of content creators and competitive players from other titles, with Shrouds team coming out on top. Despite the tournament being more tailored towards content and enjoyment, everyone taking part has a strong competitive nature with some being current/former professionals.
As the game continues to advance, we can probably expect Valorant to become a part of the esports betting scene and a popular option for many punters.
How can it advance forward
With a tournament now already being held, despite being just in its infancy as a beta, Valorant showed great potential for the future. A perfect way to describe the graphics and gameplay is a mix between Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). It has graphics and character abilities of Overwatch, with the round format and gunplay of CS:GO, which seems to be a recipe for great success.
It will be fully dependant on how Riot continue to develop and advance the game before we know if it will reach the expected heights as a top esports. However, this early showing has been positive, and we all look forward to seeing what comes next with Valorant.