When will Valorant mobile release?

It didn’t take long for Valorant to carve out its place as one of the biggest tactical shooters available on PC. With the release of Wild Rift, fans are speculating that a similar thing happening with Valorant is on its way. But is it just empty speculation or are Riot Games actually working on a mobile version?

So far, no official announcement related to the release of Valorant for smartphones has been made, but that hasn't stopped a swarm of rumors and leaks from floating around online.

When will Valorant Mobile release?

Riot Games still haven’t announced anything related to a mobile version. Luckily for us, data miners have been quick to hint at a possible release date. One popular and trusted leaker, @PlayerIGN on Twitter has revealed that Valorant mobile could come by the end of 2021 according to his sources.

While that certainly sounds great, it most likely isn’t going to happen. Wild Rift was announced almost exactly a year before the release of the first beta in 2020, and it still isn’t fully released yet. If that metric is anything to go by, Valorant probably will follow the same schedule, with a closed beta being announced a year in advance.

Data miners found mobile software configurations

Data miners can get access to a ton of information from the game files alone, and they've been known to find some pretty juicy stuff in a lot of online games. With Valorant, they’ve managed to dig up hidden files related to device profiles of iPhone XS and iPhone X in patch 1.09.

@ValorLeaks on Twitter also discovered an exclusive combat code for the main menu of what could be considered a possible mobile version for iOS.

Riot Games will focus on mobile gaming

Riot Games have been quite open about their interest in expanding to mobile and console gaming. League of Legends: Wild Rift has been nothing short of a hit in the app stores for both Android and iOS, so it makes sense that they'd be interested in focusing more on other platforms than PC.

CEO, Nicolo Laurent, even posted several tweets related to their interest in mobile gaming and the possibilities of 5G. In a recent discussion with network provider Verizon, he said that they’re aiming to bring games to mobile now that more people will have low latency and increased bandwidth on their various devices.

Moreover, in a recent discussion with US Gamer relating to the console port of Valorant, Joe Ziegler, the director of Riot Games, said that the company has numerous teams working on the idea. It’s easy to assume that the console version is currently in the early stages of development and will take time before we get the chance to play Valorant on PS5 or XBOX Series X|S.

Unconfirmed touch-control HUD screenshot leaked

Shortly after the Valorant PC release, what looked like an early build of a mobile HUD made its way to Reddit in a post by a Reddit user /bhristofer. The screenshot displays inputs for touch controls to fire your weapon, move around, switch weapons and use abilities. These are the only images posted, so the credibility certainly is something to be questioned.

Whether or not it's real, it gives us a great idea of how a mobile version could end up looking in theory.

What can we expect from Valorant Mobile?

If the release of League of Legends: Wild Rift is anything to go by, the mobile version most likely won’t be a carbon copy of the PC version in terms of gameplay.

Riot started out with a fairly limited champion pool, and then continually updated the roster as the beta went along. The reason seemed to be that they wanted as few bugs as possible to ensure that they could manage balancing abilities on a new platform.

It wouldn’t be surprising if they took the same approach when they introduce Valorant on mobile, which would mean fewer maps, weapons and even agents.

While we wait

Right now, rumors and supposed leaks are all we really have, and until we hear more from Riot themselves, we won’t know for sure when a release date is planned. Despite the lack of information available, we’re confident that a mobile version is in the works or at the very least planned for release in the near future.

In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with the PC version, which is fine by us! If you still haven’t jumped on the Valorant hype train, we’ve written a great beginner’s guide complete with helpful tips to get you started!