Ahead of VALORANT’s fifth year anniversary, the live-service tactical FPS from Riot Games is pivoting its model away from its regular episode release calendar. Instead, VALORANT will utilize year-long seasons, each consisting of six two-month long acts.
VALORANT studio lead Anna Donlon recently covered this change ahead of what is set to be the first season under this new model: Season 2025, or V25 for short. During this season, players are hoping to finally get some of the features they’ve been waiting years for.
The switch from episodes to calendar year seasons was spurred by a need to re-adjust the VALORANT content release schedule, says Donlon. With Riot also running a yearly schedule for the VALORANT Champions Tour, the game’s growing esports ecosystem, switching to a “perfectly curated season of VALORANT” affords the team more space and flexibility to plan out both game and esports projects.
Many of the in-game projects that players have been waiting for might (at last) be coming sooner than later. Donlon explained that “most of the [dev team] expansion work” is behind them, meaning the developers can work on some highly anticipated features. This includes the replay system, reworked map rotations, ranked rollbacks (rating refunds), improved matchmaking, and less toxicity.
This first update of 2025 is setting the stage for a slew of updates to come:
- A dev update on upcoming gameplay changes and fixes is coming “in the next few days.”
- An update on VALORANT mobile is coming some time in “the future.”
- Head of VALORANT Esports, Leo Faria, will have more to share on VCT “in the next couple of days.”
While Faria is expected to share more on the matter, Donlon did note that fan engagement has prompted Riot to “continue investing heavily into VALORANT esports.”
Interested in more VALORANT coverage? Check out the newest agent, the explosive initiator Tejo!
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