VALORANT is Working On Custom ‘Tournament Realms’

Abhimannu Das
Published On: 20 Nov 2020, 06:30 AM

Valorant’ esports strategy manager revealed that Riot is working on adding “Tournament Realms” to the game.
The update will enable pro players to compete in any patch instead of relying on the live servers.
Devs have confirmed that the update will be available sometime after the First Strike finals.

Valorant’ esports strategy manager Riley Yurk revealed that Riot is working on adding “Tournament Realms” for professional teams in the near future. Tournament Realms will allow professional teams to host matches on their own servers. The update will enable unofficial tournaments with custom rules and give players more control over what patches tournaments can be played on.

VALORANT is Working On Custom ‘Tournament Realms’

Custom tournament rulesets will lead to more interesting Valorant tournaments.
Image by Riot Games

In its current state, you can only play custom matches on the latest patches. In some situations, pro players cannot scrim on older balance patches, which makes things difficult for them. With the new Tournament Realms update, which will release soon, players will be able to choose Valorant balance patches and get the same in-game experience as attending an official tournament. According to Riot Games, the new update will enable custom tournaments and maintain competitive integrity.

The Valorant blog detailing the update mentioned that Riot wants to continue the collaboration between developers and players to create the best competitive experience. Recently, the 1.11 update, which was introduced on the same day as the NA First Strike qualifiers, proved to be buggy and unstable. The update had to be rolled back to help the teams compete on the older 1.10 patch. With the upcoming changes, tournament organisers will be able to do manual rollbacks for tournaments.

What Else is Coming to Valorant's Next Update?

The upcoming Valorant patch will enable pro players to host custom tournaments.
Image by The Verge

The Valorant team is currently working on an in-game leaderboard and a friends leaderboard in an upcoming update. Players will also be able to transfer progress from one server to another sometime in mid-2021 as confirmed by the devs.

Tournament Realms are coming soon but will not be available for the upcoming Valorant First Strike event, which is scheduled from December 3rd to December 6th. Riot has traditionally kept the Valorant esports patches separate from live patches and will continue to do so for the First Strike event. A fully flushed out Tournament Realms system will come to the game sometime after the tournament.

The update will help with patch stability, a topic that has been discussed by esports professionals in the past few weeks. Riot Games also revealed that the team’s day zero patch stability has been lower than expectations. The developers are working on internal process improvements and philosophical changes. The two-week patch cadence may be changed to allow for more critical patches like the Valorant Tournament Realms update in the near future. We can expect teams to have a much smoother tournament experience once the patch goes live globally.

Abhimannu Das

Abhimannu is a PC esports writer at AFK Gaming. With over seven years of experience in esports journalism, he has worked on a myriad of games and their ecosystems including Valorant, Overwatch and Apex Legends.

Riot Games VALORANT Valorant First Strike Valorant eSports Valorant Custom Tournaments

VALORANT is Working On Custom ‘Tournament Realms’

What Else is Coming to Valorant's Next Update?

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