Why VALORANT should make its way to mobile

VALORANT is one of the hottest shooters in gaming right now and has become an instant hit in esports. Is it time for it to be on mobile?

VALORANT has quickly come a long way since it was in a beta phase in the Spring. It actually felt like quite a wait going from the Spring to June when the game released the everyone. Now, the free shooter from Riot Games has since taken off in more ways than one.

One of those ways is through esports, where competitions almost immediately occurred as soon as the game released. There were many freeform tournaments featuring some of esports’ biggest teams including T1, TSM, and 100 Thieves among others.

Due to the rapid growth in the competitive scene, the VALORANT Champions Tour was born and will begin sometime in 2021. Since the game is made by Riot Games, this definitely doesn’t come as a surprise. This is the same team that obviously created League of Legends, one of the biggest games of all-time and the most popular esport game.

So, since VALORANT is moving along as fast as it has been, is it time for it to expand to other platforms? At the moment, the game is only available on PC. Games by Riot are typically on PC anyway, but there was a recent change.

They had created League of Legends: Wild Rift as well as Legends of Runterra which are both mobile games. Runterra in particular was a finalist for Mobile Game of the Year at The Game Awards in 2020.

So, this shows that they are no stranger to the mobile scene, and they definitely move along fast with things. VALORANT has the potential to be a great mobile game. Gun games are usually popular on mobile, including Call of Duty, PUBG, Free Fire, and Critical Ops.

Now, keep in mind that VALORANT isn’t a traditional shooter by any means. It has some Overwatch and Counterstrike vibes (the latter seeing most of its esports pros switching to VALORANT). You can use Ultimates and other specialty weapons so it definitely has its quirkiness aside from its cartoonish design.

But Apex Legends, another very quirky shooter is making its way to mobile in 2021, so there is room for games of that style on iOS and Android. It’s just a matter of if you make VALORANT a port to mobile or do you give it a version that is exclusive to mobile? The safe bet would be to roll with the latter option.

Having its own entity could give it some exclusive features that might reel more players to it on mobile. With that said, the benefit of a port is that, if you don’t have a PC that can run the game, your phone should do the trick. Fortnite’s mobile port actually did extremely well before the controversy with Apple occurred, but is still playable on Android.

Either way, bringing a unique, futuristic shooter like VALORANT to mobile could give portable gamers a fresh taste on the genre. Sure, there are actually many different kinds of shooters (and many other games) of all kinds on iPhone and Android, but if you want to get in on a red hot game like this, then here’s a great opportunity.

Also, mobile gaming is immensely popular and growing. A couple of reasons include the fact that it’s a highly accessible platform and the fact that most games are free to play. Also, the fact that it’s portable is also a perk.

With the popularity of mobile gaming comes the growth of its esports scene. This is an excellent chance for VALORRANT to become a fan favorite in the mobile esports department. It’s already becoming more popular on the PC side with the aforementioned Champions Tour coming really soon.

If anything, I can certainly see a mobile sector of the tour if Riot were to make the game for phones. This would be a good chance to merge both the PC and mobile sides in one league to avoid some minor confusion.

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The PGA Tour does this with their website. They have a pull-down box that will allow you to pull up which tour site you want to visit. This includes the Korn Ferry Tour (minor leagues of golf essentially), LPGA (women’s tour), and the Champions Tour (senior tour).

This could be done with the VALORANT’s tour site as well. This way, fans new and seasoned can easily view the schedule, news, videos, etc for each sector of the Champions Tour. I’m probably getting ahead of myself but it’s always fun to speculate a bit.

If VALORANT makes its way to iOS and Android, it would be yet another massive step for mobile gaming. We don’t know how well it would do on the esports scene, but it will open the door to a world of fans who game primarily on mobile (and that’s a TON of fans). Its unique design, pace, and quirkiness could be quite a spectacle for mobile esports. It’s going to be fun to see where mobile gaming continues to go, whether that includes VALORANT or not, remains to be seen as only time will tell the tale.