Valorant, Riot Games' free-to-play competitive first-person hero shooter, is coming up on its second anniversary. It remains a striking success, and Riot has already announced plans to expandValorantonto mobile platforms. What it hasn’t promised, however, is thatValorantwill eventually be released on consoles. While Riot has previously said it was “prototyping” a console version ofValorant, no announcement has followed. That may be changing soon, however, going off recent clues.
There are two significant pieces of evidence indicating that Riot Games may be moving closer to releasingValoranton PlayStation and Xbox platforms. First, there are multiple Riot Games job listings for console-focused positions working onValorant. Perhaps more persuasive are two lines of code hinting at console support recently put intoValorantas part of an update. To be clear, there’s no official confirmation of a console version ofValorantyet, so this remains a rumor for the time being. The evidence is persuasive, though.
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The job listings found onRiot Games' website include positions for multiple Senior Game Designers, as well as a Software Engineering Manager. The Software Engineering Manager is specifically tasked with transforming theValorantdevelopment team into a “multi-platform studio.” The first responsibility for the position is “to bring theValorantexperience to consoles.” It doesn’t get much clearcut than that. However, building toward bringingValorantto consoles is much different than releasing it on consoles.
That’s where the recentValorantupdate makes things interesting. Two specific strings were included in theValorantupdatefound within the game’s files. The strings read “Connection to ‘PSN’ has been lost,” and “Connection to Xbox LIVE has been lost.” It’s the first indication that official support for PlayStation and Xbox consoles has been officially added to the live version ofValorant. It’s a step, albeit a small one, toward full support ofValoranton consoles.
Between the files and the job listings, it seems obvious that Riot has moved beyond prototyping and is actively working towardbringingValorantto consoles. With that said, that doesn’t mean that the process is very far along. WhenValorantwill come to consoles remains an unanswered question and will likely remain so for some time.
What’s really important is thatmultiplayer shooterfans would love to seeValoranton consoles, and it now seems like Riot Games is going to deliver what they want. If those fans have been patient for the past year and a half, they’ll likely continue to be so until Riot’s ready to officially launchValoranton PlayStation and Xbox.
