Valorant release date: June 2, 2020 & the OG test

When did Valorant come out? Release date and key facts

So, when did Valorant come out? The official Valorant release date is June 2, 2020. That day Riot Games published the patch 1.0 notes, opened the game to everyone and kicked off Episode 1, called “IGNITION,” with Act 1. But launch day wasn’t the community’s first taste of the game. Riot announced it back in October 2019, revealed the name in March 2020, and the lucky ones were already playing in the Closed Beta from April 2020.

If you log in for the first time today, you’re playing a very different Valorant from the one day-one players remember. That’s what this page is about: you get the exact release date, the full Valorant history as a timeline, and an honest look at what has changed since 2020. Most of the data comes from official patch notes and the official Riot wiki; a few details, like esports results, come from Liquipedia and Wikipedia.

One small detail you might trip over while digging around: for the name reveal, the Riot wiki lists March 2, 2020, while Wikipedia says March 1, 2020. The difference comes down to time zones, and we go with the date from the Riot wiki. There’s no such confusion about the launch itself, because the patch 1.0 notes carry a clear date. The console version, by the way, arrived much later – everything about playing on PlayStation and Xbox is on our page about Valorant on console.

The OG test: how it works

At the top of this page you’ll find the nostalgia test “How OG are you?” It’s a checklist of roughly 30 memories from the Closed Beta and from 2020, 2021 and 2022. Just tick everything you actually experienced yourself – for example, whether you watched Twitch streams for a beta key, whether the highest rank was still called “VALORANT” for you, whether you bought the Operator for 4,500 credits, whether you caught the very first Night Market, or whether you played Snowball Fight. Every memory carries its own point value, and the test adds them up to build your result.

Wherever a matching official image from the Valorant API exists, you’ll see it right next to the item – think Episode 1 rank icons, the Closed Beta buddy or the maps. That way a lot of things click instantly, even if you’ve forgotten the exact name.

• At the end you get an OG score from 0 to 100.
• The test also places you in one of five OG tiers, ranging from Closed Beta veteran at the top down to total newcomer.
• On top of that, it estimates the “era” you’ve roughly been playing since.
• You can save your result as a retro share card in portrait format, 1080×1350, with a deliberately oversaturated 2016 look – or copy a link to share it.
• Below the test there’s an interactive timeline you can filter by year, plus a “Then vs. now” comparison with actual numbers.

One important point: the test runs purely on self-reporting. Nothing is matched against your Riot account, verified or stored on a server – at most it stays in your own browser. If you cheat, you’re only cheating for the screenshot. Answered honestly, it’s a lot more fun, because clicking through shows you how much the game has really changed.

Why everyone is looking back right now

In 2026 the “2026 is the new 2016” trend is making the rounds on TikTok and Instagram: people post old photos, old outfits and the games they used to love. Valorant is only six years old, but in gaming years that’s a small eternity. The gap between a beta with three maps and today’s game with a console version, Premier and a rotating map pool is huge. The OG test is our take on the trend – not a competition, just an invitation to walk back through your own Valorant years.

From “Project A” to VALORANT: the backstory

Valorant history starts on October 15, 2019. Riot Games was celebrating the 10th anniversary of League of Legends and used the occasion to show off a project simply called “Project A”: a character-based tactical shooter for PC. There was no real name yet at that point – for about four and a half months, the game existed only under its working title.

The big reveal came on March 2, 2020. Riot unveiled the name VALORANT, dropped a gameplay video and set the release window for “Summer 2020.” From there, things moved fast: roughly five weeks later the Closed Beta went live, and less than two months after that the game was open to everyone. If you knew the game as “Project A,” you were there at the very beginning – which is exactly why the OG test asks about it.

Don’t mix up the history of the game with the story inside the game, though. If First Light, Radianite and the two Earths are more your thing, check out our overview of Valorant lore. This page covers the real-world timeline; that one covers the in-game universe.

The 2020 Closed Beta: Twitch drops as your ticket in

Riot opened the Closed Beta on April 7, 2020, at 5 a.m. PDT. At launch it covered Europe, Canada, the US, Turkey and Russia plus the CIS region. On May 1, 2020, Korea, Latin America and Brazil joined in. What made it special was how you got in: you couldn’t buy a beta key, and there was no classic sign-up form either. Instead, Riot went all in on Twitch drops.

1. You linked your Riot account to your Twitch account.
2. You watched streams that had drops enabled.
3. After at least two hours of watch time, you became eligible to receive access through a drop.
4. If the drop landed, you were in – if not, you kept watching.

The result was massive hype. According to Wikipedia, 1.73 million concurrent viewers tuned in on Twitch on beta day one. At the time that was the second-highest number in Twitch history, beaten only by the 2019 League of Legends World Championship final. If no drop showed up for you, you simply stayed glued to the stream – waiting was part of the beta experience.

Gameplay-wise, the beta was a different world, too. There were only three maps – Bind, Haven and Split – and the balance shifted constantly. Beta patch 0.47 in April 2020 cut Raze down from two Paint Shells to one, and Sage’s Slow Orb started slowing players in mid-air as well, a fix aimed at bunny-hopping. With patch 0.49 at the end of April, Riot said Competitive would follow in the beta “soon after,” starting with Europe and North America. So beta players knew Ranked before it disappeared again for the official launch.

What survived the beta

The Closed Beta wrapped up on May 28, 2020. Not everything from that era was lost, though. A few things are still telltale signs of a beta player:

• The “Closed Beta Coin Buddy” from the beta pass – a gun buddy only beta participants own.
• Every Valorant Point bought during the beta was refunded at launch, with a 20% bonus on top.
• Rewards from the beta player pass were kept.
• Players who were eligible but never got in received a Twitch/VALORANT player card as a consolation prize.
• The beta version of the Reaver collection was removed and refunded; the original red Luxe was replaced by a blue-and-silver Luxe without variants.

A regular Reaver collection showed up later with patch 1.11, with the bundle priced at 7,100 VP. Still, if you can picture the original beta version, you’re part of a very small club.

What Valorant looked like at launch

On June 2, 2020, Valorant launched with 11 Agents and 4 maps. New compared to the beta were the Agent Reyna, the map Ascent and the Spike Rush mode, which was still explicitly labeled as a beta. Split looked different, too, because its mid area was reworked for launch. And then there was the decision that caught plenty of people off guard – there was no Competitive mode at launch. The patch 1.0 notes put it plainly: “Competitive mode will not be on at launch.”

We’re deliberately careful about the beta Agent count: according to the Riot wiki, the Closed Beta had 10 Agents. Since Reyna only arrived with patch 1.0, the beta lineup matched the launch roster minus Reyna, as far as the sources show – but the Riot wiki doesn’t keep a complete, item-by-item list for the beta.

The original 11 Agents

The launch roster was Brimstone, Viper, Omen, Cypher, Sova, Sage, Phoenix, Jett, Raze, Breach and Reyna. The new face on the team was Reyna, who only joined with patch 1.0. For how she plays today, see our Reyna guide. Several of the originals felt very different at launch than they do now:

• Jett’s Cloudburst smokes lasted 7 seconds at launch. Patch 2.01 cut that to 4.5 seconds, and it has been reduced further since.
• Sage could cast her Barrier Orb from 20 meters away at launch; patch 1.01 on June 9, 2020, halved the range to 10 meters.
• Raze’s Blast Pack dealt 75 damage until patch 1.05 in August 2020 lowered it to 50.
• Jett’s ultimate, Blade Storm, still had a 3× headshot multiplier with no damage falloff – that only changed with patch 1.09.

Since then the roster has grown to almost three times its launch size. You’ll find every current Agent and their abilities in our Agents overview.

The store and battle pass in summer 2020

The store was pretty lean at launch, too. The Prime collection was there from day one: single skins cost 1,775 VP, the bundle 7,100 VP. Sovereign followed with patch 1.01, and then, with patch 1.03 in July 2020, Elderflame arrived – the dragon collection as an Ultra Edition, with skins at 2,475 VP and a bundle at 9,900 VP. After that came Oni (patch 1.04) and the first Glitchpop collection (patch 1.05), an Exclusive Edition with an 8,700 VP bundle.

The very first battle pass was called “IGNITION: Act 1” and had 50 tiers. Its weapon skins came from the Kingdom, Couture and .EXE collections. Act 2 followed with Hivemind, POLYfox and Red Alert, and Act 3 with Ruin, Serenity and Surge. If one of those skins is sitting in your inventory, you’re carrying a piece of Episode 1 around with you.

Valorant history: timeline 2019–2026

The timeline below covers the biggest moments in Valorant history, from the first teaser to today. We focused on events that noticeably changed the game: new Agents and maps, major reworks of the ranked system, new platforms and new modes. In the interactive version above, you can filter by year.

2020: year one

After launch, Riot shipped content at a rapid pace. Episode 1 was split into three acts: Act 1 ran from June 2 to August 4, 2020 (patches 1.0 to 1.04), Act 2 until October 13 (1.05 to 1.09), and Act 3 until January 12, 2021 (1.10 to 1.14). During that stretch, Killjoy and Skye joined the roster and Icebox arrived as a new map. Deathmatch went live as a beta from August 5, 2020 – first to 30 kills, a six-minute time limit and no abilities at all.

At the end of the year, patch 1.14 brought several classics at once: the first Night Market on December 10, 2020, with six random discounted skins, the holiday mode Snowball Fight starting December 15, and the first big rework of Icebox A site. For how the Night Market works today and when it’s coming back, head over to our Night Market page.

2021: Episodes 2 and 3

Episode 2, “FORMATION,” kicked off on January 12, 2021, with Yoru and a shake-up of the rank system. Astra followed in March and Breeze in April. The first limited-time fun modes, Escalation and Replication, also landed that year. Episode 3, “REFLECTION,” arrived on June 22, 2021, with KAY/O, account levels and the free YR1 event pass for the first anniversary. Fracture came in September, Chamber in November – and patch 3.10 let five-stacks back into Competitive while four-stacks were removed.

2022 to 2026: modern Valorant

Episode 4 brought Neon in January 2022 and Fade in April – together with a big Jett nerf that forced her to prime Tailwind before she could dash. Patch 5.0 in June 2022 was a turning point: the new Ascendant rank, the map Pearl and the start of map rotation, with Split leaving the pool for the first time. Premier ran as an open beta from April 25, 2023, and officially launched on August 29, 2023. The limited console beta started in June 2024, followed by the full PS5 and Xbox release in August 2024. VALORANT Mobile launched in China in August 2025, and patch 12.00 in January 2026 added the Bandit sidearm and replays for custom matches. Patch 13.00 brought the map Summit, and the current patch is 13.06.

Then vs. now

How far apart the 2020 and 2026 versions of Valorant really are becomes obvious in a side-by-side comparison. The table puts the launch state next to the state as of September 28, 2026:

Today, then, Valorant has 29 Agents and 13 standard maps, seven of which are in the current ranked pool. For every map with its layout, see our maps guide. On the weapons side, the Riot wiki describes the Outlaw as the first weapon added to the standard arsenal since launch. The Bandit joined it as another sidearm in January 2026.

The Operator shows the shift especially well. At launch the sniper rifle cost 4,500 credits. Patch 1.09 on September 29, 2020, raised it to 5,000, and patch 3.0 in June 2021 dropped it to 4,700 credits – the price it still has according to the Riot wiki. If you remember the 4,500-credit Operator, you played during that first summer. The same patch 1.09 also took away the 3× headshot damage on Jett’s Blade Storm and gave it damage falloff.

Our take: the biggest differences aren’t in individual numbers, but in how the whole game feels. In 2020, everyone knew every map by heart because there were only four. Today the pool rotates, and new players have to get used to far more Agents, weapons and systems. In return, the game has become much deeper strategically.

Ranks through the years: from “VALORANT” to Radiant

Few systems have changed as often as Ranked. In the beta and in the announcements around launch, it had eight ranks: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond and Immortal, each split into three tiers, with a top rank on top that was simply called “VALORANT.” Patch 1.02 on June 23, 2020, brought Competitive back, and the top rank became Radiant. The same patch introduced the surrender vote via /ff.

To unlock Competitive, you originally had to finish 20 unrated matches. Patch 1.14 in December 2020 changed that to 10 unrated wins. With Episode 2 in January 2021, Immortal 1, 2 and 3 were merged into a single Immortal rank, and the Radiant leaderboard for the top 500 went live at the same time. That didn’t last: patch 3.05 in September 2021 brought the three Immortal tiers back.

The last major expansion so far came with patch 5.0 in June 2022, which slotted Ascendant in between Diamond and Immortal. That adds up to nine ranks with 25 tiers today. For how the current system works and how to climb, check out our ranks guide. Quick tip: if you still remember Immortal coming right after Diamond, you played Ranked before June 2022.

The first big tournaments

Alongside the game itself, an esports scene took shape in record time. The results in this section come from Liquipedia and Wikipedia, so they’re secondary sources – that’s why we report them neutrally and without commentary.

First Strike 2020: the first big title

The first big tournament series many fans remember was First Strike. The regional finals took place from December 3 to 6, 2020. In North America, 100 Thieves beat TSM, while in Europe, Team Heretics won against SUMN FC.

2021: Reykjavík, Berlin and the first Champions

From May 24 to 30, 2021, Masters Reykjavík became the first international LAN event. In the final, Sentinels beat Fnatic 3-0. Masters Berlin followed in September 2021: on September 19, Gambit Esports defeated Team Envy 3-0. The year closed with the first VALORANT Champions, also held in Berlin. In the final on December 12, 2021, Acend beat Gambit 3-2, and zeek was named MVP.

For how the scene is structured today, which leagues exist and who’s currently on top, see our overview of Valorant esports.

Events and modes only OGs remember

Beyond Agents and maps, it’s the small, limited-time stuff that really gives veterans away. Some of these moments show up in the OG test as well. Here are the big ones, with context:

• Spike Rush with the Golden Gun: Back when Spike Rush was still a beta mode, you could grab a Golden Gun orb built around “one shot, one kill.”
• Deathmatch as a beta: From August 2020, with no abilities, 30 kills to win and a six-minute cap.
• The very first Night Market: In December 2020 you got six random skins at a discount for the first time.
• Snowball Fight: The holiday mode started on December 15, 2020. Two teams went 5v5, and the first to 50 kills won. Sources disagree on when it ended, so we only list the start date.
• Escalation: Introduced in February 2021 with patch 2.03 – twelve levels of changing weapons and abilities, with the Snowball Launcher waiting at the end.
• Replication: From May 11 to 25, 2021, the whole team played the same Agent. Classic picture: five Sages against five Jetts.
• YR1 event pass: For the first anniversary in June 2021, there was a free event pass.
• The Immortal mess: For a while Immortal was just one rank, until tiers 1 to 3 came back.

Our tip for the test: take your time with the list and only check what you genuinely lived through. The 2021 modes are easy to forget because they only ran for a few weeks. And if none of this rings a bell, that’s fine too – you’re a newcomer with the big advantage of learning modern Valorant without any old habits holding you back.

Frequently asked questions about the Valorant release

When did Valorant come out?

Valorant launched worldwide on PC on June 2, 2020. That day Riot Games released patch 1.0, and Episode 1 “IGNITION” began.

When did the Valorant Closed Beta start?

The Closed Beta began on April 7, 2020, in Europe, Canada, the US, Turkey and Russia/CIS, and ended on May 28, 2020. Access was handed out through Twitch drops.

What was Valorant called before release?

Riot announced the game as “Project A” on October 15, 2019. The name VALORANT was revealed on March 2, 2020.

How many Agents were there at launch?

There were 11 Agents at launch: Brimstone, Viper, Omen, Cypher, Sova, Sage, Phoenix, Jett, Raze, Breach and Reyna. Reyna was new with patch 1.0.

Which maps were in the game at release?

Four maps were available at release: Bind, Haven, Split and the brand-new Ascent. The Closed Beta only had Bind, Haven and Split.

Was Ranked available at launch?

No. Competitive was deliberately switched off at launch and arrived with patch 1.02, whose patch notes are dated June 23, 2020. The beta already had Ranked.

What was Radiant called before?

In the beta and at launch, the highest rank was called “VALORANT.” Patch 1.02 renamed it Radiant.

When did Valorant come to PS5 and Xbox?

The limited console beta started on June 14, 2024, and the full release on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S followed on August 2, 2024.

How many Agents and maps does Valorant have today?

As of September 28, 2026, Valorant has 29 Agents and 13 standard maps, seven of which are in the current ranked pool.

Does the OG test check or save anything?

No. The test is based on your own answers. Nothing is matched against your account or stored on a server – at most it’s saved locally in your browser.