Is VALORANT still coming to console and mobile? Riot Games says it will take time

It’s been a while since Riot Games, the developer of VALORANT, expressed its intent to port its popular first-person shooter to other platforms.

The company previously acknowledged they were exploring to bring the game to mobile and possibly consoles, but it's been a while since we've had any further updates.

That is, until now.

VALORANT Executive Producer Anna Donlon stated in a Dev Diaries video posted on Wednesday (25 January) that it may take some time before players can experience the game on other platforms other than PC.

“We are continuing our work on bringing VALORANT to new platforms,” she said. “It’s going slower than we’d hoped.”

Donlon said that the progress may be going slower than the fans hope but established that they “wanted to make sure that [they] got it right.”

In the same video, the devs discussed its commitment to take down toxic behaviour and, and revealed plans to release new content, such as new game modes like Team Deathmatch.

Challenges in porting VALORANT

Unlike Riot’s first game, the MOBA League of Legends, which could potentially encounter plenty of issues in porting to other platforms because it runs on Riot’s proprietary games engine, VALORANT runs on Unreal Engine 4, so the possibility of porting to console may not be as challenging.

That said, porting to mobile may be a different matter altogether.

It took years for Riot to create its own mobile version, League of Legends: Wild Rift, but not before other mobile MOBAs like Moonton’s Mobile Legends were developed and gained their footing in the Southeast Asian market.

And with NetEase releasing its mobile FPS, Hyper Front, last year, Riot may be looking at potential competition in the future.

Then there’s the issue of integrating the game that can accommodate cross-platform play.

With VALORANT being an extremely competitive FPS, playing ranked on cross-platform may prove difficult because of the potentially unfair advantages of using a console vs a keyboard.

However, despite all these challenges, it seems that Riot is still committed to making it happen. While it may take a while, there’s been a bit of progress.

In June 2022, the company announced its partnership with Microsoft and XBOX Game Pass.

This meant that players who sign up for the game pass and link their accounts up with their Riot Games account also gain access to all agents in VALORANT and all champions of League of Legends.

And with such a partnership, it may be safe to say that porting to XBOX may be one of Riot’s first attempts to make their games cross-platform.

Sharp-eyed fans also noticed last November 2022 that Riot had been advertising a couple of positions like the Senior game designer and game designer for console.

It was also confirmed in the past that the company was also looking at porting the game to mobile, but there had been no updates on that front.

The Dev Diaries video released on 25 January also showed a couple of clips of the dev team seemingly working on the adjustments needed to make the game available to other platforms.

Hopefully, with all these updates, fans won’t have to wait for it for too long.

Anna is a freelance writer and photographer. She is a gamer who loves RPGs and platformers, and is a League of Legends geek. She's also a food enthusiast who loves a good cup of black coffee.

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