Valorant ranked play now live in NA — Europe release date announced

The ranked mode for Riot’s new tactical shooter, Valorant, is finally here. After releasing details over the past week, the developers have announced ranked’s release in North America and, soon, in Europe.

Valorant has taken over the gaming world. With a beta praised for feeling cleaner than most finished products, FPS aficionados have been clamoring for a ranked mode to hit their servers.

Now, Riot has announced that ranked play will be hitting live servers in North America today and, “if all goes well,” Europe following the next patch, so just past 9:30 a.m. CEST on May 1.

Like much of the popular game developer’s habits, this is expected to be a flexible release and a preemptive trial of the competitive experience. In case people aren’t familiar with their adaptive process, Riot cautioned that they “reserve the right to turn off ranked at any time if things get weird.”

• Read more: Valorant April 29 update adds Ranked play to beta: full patch notes

An April 24 blog update affirmed the team’s insistence on assuring competitive integrity in their ranked mode, so it’s clear that this is a closed beta trial—far from the finished product.

But, given the closed beta experience thus far, people are likely to have high expectations for the experimental ranked release to feel fully developed.   

Riot Games

Valorant gameplay blends a traditional FPS with the abilities of a tactical game.

As for how built out it should be, the developers have already summarized much of the experience. The competitive mode will use the same ruleset and format as in the Unrated mode, but with an emphasis on competitive integrity.

VALORANT Ranked Mode

• Complete 20 Unrated matches to unlock Competitive mode
• Eight ranks, three tiers each, except the top rank: VALORANT
• Queue in parties of up to five players, all within two ranks of each other
• Rank does not decay, but will not display if no competitive matches have been played within past 14 days
• Closed beta rank will not carry over to launch

The ranks themselves proceed as follows: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Immortal, VALORANT.

Your ability to rank up is defined primarily by wins and losses, but also by your performance in those matches (and how they compare to your other performances). 

• Read more: Riot reveals new plans for Valorant’s “invasive” 24/7 anti-cheat program

As seen in other ranked modes, the game will prioritize pitting players in parties against other parties of similar sizes. That is about as much information as is available thus far, so all that’s left is to find out how NA reacts to the launch and see if “things get weird” enough for Riot to cut the mode off prematurely.