Valorant, the Overwatch/Counter-Strike hybrid that took everyone by storm last year, is coming to a mobile phone near you. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the game, Riot will be porting its competitive tactical shooter over to Android and iOS but hasn’t provided a release date just yet. It seems a strange move to place a game that requires such precision on a platform that isn’t exactly conducive to accuracy but I’m sure Riot has a plan to make it work. Speaking to Polygon, executive producer of Valorant, Anna Donlon, clarified a few details regarding the upcoming port.
“We didn’t start out with ‘We’re making Valorant on mobile,’ we started out with ‘Can we make Valorant on mobile?’ with a lot of skepticism,” Donlon said. “For us, whatever you get out of playing on PC, you should get out of playing Valorant on mobile. But we have to recognize that the mobile player need is different.” Donlon went on to clarify that while the mobile version was a new venture for the development team, it wouldn’t compromise the integrity of the PC game. Donlon confirmed that Riot would continue to uphold the quality of the PC game and not exclusively cater to the mobile market. Oh, and it won’t support cross-play between PC and mobile. That would have been a bloodbath.
Donlon didn’t provide any solid details regarding the mobile port but did say that players should expect to see the game in roughly a year or two. Valorant is a free-to-play tactical shooter that borrows more than a little from competitor Counter-Strike. Actually, it’s almost exactly like Counter-Strike. The primary difference being the addition of Agent characters that each come equipped with abilities to help themselves or their teams in a fight. It’s a great game… if you have the patience to sit through that learning curve.
Last Updated: June 3, 2021
