VALORANT Could Be Getting A Battle Royale Mode Soon
According to prolific leaker @PlayerIGN, a rumour has surfaced that connects VALORANT with the most impactful genre of the last couple of years, battle royale. Furthermore, PlayerIGN connects the dots with an alleged exclusive playtest regarding some Chinese players. However, it should be noted that VALORANT is currently still unavailable in China, therefore possibly hinting towards an unrelated topic.
The genre known from games such as PlayerUnkown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), Fortnite, and Warzone seems to be an odd implementation for the shooter, but there is precedent in the spiritual predecessor, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). "Danger Zone" as the CS:GO version is called is a unique small scale take on the genre, incorporating a much more compact-sized map with rather different systems than what we are used to in the traditional battle royale genre. Unfortunately, the mode never got to the viral breaking point of its brethren but it could still give an idea as to how VALORANT battle royale could look like.
Given the architecture of Riot's game, it would be unlikely to feature large scale warfare with as many players as its competitors. Instead, the gameplay could be snappier and quicker, featuring fewer players at a time while offering better gameplay feedback and more smoothed out mechanics. Moreover, we can expect a Riot-spin on the core ideas of the genre. Furthermore, one quality about Riot's development has been to rarely forsake their game modes entirely until several tries deep into trying to iterate on their ideas, promising future potential even if the first version that hits the servers wouldn't be an instant hit.
Of course, no official information is currently known or announced, so we'll have to wait and see if the anticipation is just wishful thinking. However, the notion of a more casual game mode to introduce players to the VALORANT universe does seem sensible.
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