Valorant: All Twitch Streams Can Now Drop Closed Beta Access

Riot Games has made a fairly significant shift in how it hands out Valorant closed beta access. While the total number of closed beta access drops has not increased, the manner in which you can become eligible to receive closed beta access has. Specifically, Riot Games has made it so that all Valorant Twitch streams can now enable drops for viewers. So, if you have access to the closed beta, and stream that on Twitch, you can now participate in the frenzy.

Previously, these Twitch stream drops were limited to specifically highlighted streams from big-name streamers on the platform. This change should not only spread the wealth, so to speak, of access, but the viewers that were previously accumulating all in one place. And there have been tons of viewers trying to get their hands on closed beta access, so this should be nothing but a boon for smaller streamers.

In general, this seems to have been a fairly clever ploy by Riot Games to really dominate on Twitch. As of writing, there are over 700,000 viewers on the livestreaming platform, with League of Legends — Riot Games’ most popular title — trailing it with only around 274,000 viewers. While it remains to be seen if Riot Games will consider this experiment a successful one, there’s no doubt that other developers will be paying close attention to how all of this plays out.

“Our goal with VALORANT Closed Beta is to learn all the things we need to know going into launch, and one of those lessons is server load management,” Riot Games’ update states. “We are still in the active process of rolling out server infrastructure around the world—including more in EU and NA—and closed beta is doing a great job of telling us where we need to be.”

Have you had a chance to check out the Valorant closed beta as of yet? Any favorite characters? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!

Valorant‘s Closed Beta began April 7th, and there’s currently no set end date. The 5-vs-5, free-to-play tactical shooter from Riot Games is expected to launch this summer, though, as previously announced, Closed Beta progress will not carry over to the full game. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Valorant right here.