Riot Explains How Valorant’s Battle Pass Will Work

Riot Games’ tactical shooter Valorant already has some cosmetic elements at play in the closed beta with different skins available to earn or purchase, and like other continually updated games nowadays that are built for the long run, it’ll have a battle pass. This battle pass will presumably work as you’d expect it would based on what’s been said so far about it with players able to progress through either a free or premium track of rewards to customize their experiences. Unlike other features coming to the game in the next few updates, however, players will have to wait to see the battle pass in full since it’s not being released until the game fully launches.

The Valorant battle pass was addressed by Riot in a recent post that went over the team’s philosophies on content acquired from the in-game store. This includes cosmetics available to purchase and things earned by completing Contracts as well as the stuff players will acquire by leveling up through the battle pass.

If you’d like to keep the free-to-play Valorant 100% free-to-play, you won’t have to spend anything to start ranking up through the battle pass. There’s more in it for you if you choose to purchase the premium version of it though, so if it’s anything like other battle passes, expect the rewards to be more sporadic and not quite as enticing if you’re opting only for the free version.

“Available at launch, the Valorant Battle Pass gives you a route to progress and unlock cosmetics by rewarding you for playing Valorant,” Joe “SWAGGERNAU7” Lee said about the battle pass. “There will be a free track for all and a paid track as well. Same idea here folks, the optional extras are designed to personalize your gameplay moments without affecting gameplay.”

The bit about things affecting gameplay referenced a previous point in the post where Riot said its skins for weapons aren’t meant to alter gameplay in any way whether that’s in terms of visuals, sounds, or something else. If something is found to break that rule, Riot said it’d fix the problem.

Valorant’s full launch doesn’t have a release date yet which means neither does the battle pass, but you can expect the pass to launch at alongside the full game when both are ready during the summer. You can expect the game’s ranked mode sooner than that though since it’s planned for a release any day now as soon as some problems can be worked out.