Riot Games Officially Confirms Upcoming Escalation Mode for Valorant

Leaks surrounding a limited-time game mode coming to Valorant showed up recently, and Riot Games finally offered some insights on what to expect. The studio made an official announcement and explained how the upcoming game mode works. Valorant’s Escalation Mode will not be a part of the standard rotation of game modes, including Deathmatch, Spike Rush, and the classic 5v5 gameplay. Instead, we will get access to Riot Games’ iteration of Gun Game from Call of Duty for a limited time, similar to the Snowball fight mode we had last year. The new game mode will go live on February 17th with a new patch. 

Valorant Escalation Mode: What is It?

Escalation is a casual, fast-paced mode designed for fun social play and perfect for encouraging players to practice with new weapons. In this mode, players are given powerful guns at the start of the match but as they get more kills, their powerful weapons are periodically replaced with progressively more challenging and less-lethal ones. This is reminiscent of Gun Game / All The Guns from Call of Duty which started as an April Fools Joke, but it became one of the FPS community’s favorite game modes. 

Here’s what to expect from the upcoming game mode: 

• 5v5 team-based gameplay
• Semi-randomized guns & abilities
• Average match time: 8 minutes 

How Does Valorant’s Escalation Mode Work?

The mode is very similar to a team deathmatch with infinite respawns. There is a 15-90 second warmup phase where players are given random weapons until the spawn doors open up. Here is the ruleset for the limited time mode: 

1. When the match starts, there is one randomly-generated set of 12 weapons/abilities that both teams must cycle through, roughly from ‘most lethal’ to ‘least lethal.’ 
2. A team must collectively get X number of kills/points in each of the 12 stages before progressing to the next one. 
3. Each player will have an individual weapon that they need to level up. Even if a squad proceeds to the next Escalation level, individual players will have to upgrade their weapons. 
4. All players can use only the basic abilities, with operator abilities being disabled in the upcoming game mode. Each level will unlock an ability or weapon for players. 
5. Respawns are very quick with a 5-second immunity phase to avoid spawn killing.

To avoid momentum from playing too big a role in the game mode, the developers have added the ability for teams to get the final weapon or ability as soon as the final stage is reached. Players who are too far behind their teammates will be put on even ground to help compete in the finals stages in the game. If no team clears all escalation levels within 10 minutes, the team in the lead is awarded a win. 

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