Developers Riot Games has confirmed that Valorant Ranked matchmaking is coming to the full game as part of patch 1.02.
The dev team have been teasing the return of rated mode this month and it now looks like it will be making its return in the coming days.
No set release date has been confirmed yet but a new update on the rollout very soon, meaning the launch time should be set for before June 27.
Valorant patch notes for update 1.02 are also expected to be shared when everything starts rolling out, meaning fans will know about all the changes coming to the game this week.
And the good news is that while we don’t know exactly when things will be kicking off, we do know how things are changing.
As mentioned above, Valorant Ranked has already been tested out but was removed after the closed beta period ended.
This will be the first full iteration of the mode, which has changed since it was first debuted on PC.
Riot Games has confirmed what tweaks it has made, including the renaming of top rank in Valorant, and making it easier to play with friends.
The top rank will no longer be referred to as “Valorant,” having been changed to Radiant, while matchmaking will now support a wider gap between friends based on skill setting.
However, while there will be more flexibility, Riot Games has made it plain that they are still looking to protect low-level players, with limitations on the new matchmaking confirmed.
A message from the Riot team adds: “Although we still really like having our top rank be something unique to our game and aligned with our IP, we’ve decided to remove VALORANT as the name of our top rank to help reduce potential confusion of the game vs the rank.
“The new name for our top rank will represent Agents infused with powers, known as Radiant.
“You can now matchmake with your friends during placements even if they have a fairly large skill discrepancy—to a certain extent.
“For example, if you’re an elite player, and your friend is still learning the ropes, our Competitive Matchmaking will still prevent you from being able to queue in order to protect the competitive integrity and experience for the other players in that match.
“We also are continuing to optimize our matchmaking to ensure that, regardless of your premade size, you are put into fair and balanced matches.
“By the end of closed beta, we were narrowing in on matches being about 50/50 fairness for the vast majority of skill groups (outside of our most elite players in our top two ranks).”
And these aren’t the only tweaks being made, with Riot Games confirming the following changes:
- Clarity pass for rank colors so it’s easier to distinguish between each rank
- Visual polish pass for each Match Rating.
More on this week’s Valorant Ranked release can be found below, including tentative future plans for the game:
RANK PROGRESSION
In every VALORANT Act—which spans about two months—you’ll have the opportunity to track your rank progress throughout the Act. We will start tracking your rank progress as soon as we launch Competitive with patch 1.02 behind the scenes, and soon after we will be providing you visible info in your Match History, and eventually in other locations in the client, around your overall performance for the Act. Rank progress we are looking at tracking are stats such as how you’ve climbed in rank over the Act, your number of wins, along with your wins at your highest achieved rank.
THE BEYOND
We’ve seen a ton of demand for competitive-related features that support teams, in-client tournaments, fairer overtime handling, and more granular top rank comparisons – such as leaderboards. For now, we are primarily focused on getting Competitive Matchmaking globally launched. However, we do want to eventually address these needs.
Our vision for the future highlights teamplay as a critical part of the VALORANT Competitive Ecosystem. We want to create the opportunity for all players to come together and compete at high stakes as a team, with the hope these team-oriented competitive matches will be memorable and rewarding events.