Valorant Creators Explain Why There's No Solo Queue Option

Valorant players can hop into a game immediately without needing to put together a team first, but [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

Valorant players can hop into a game immediately without needing to put together a team first, but there's no option to make sure you get teamed up with other solo players and not those who might be in premade teams. That means there's no Solo Queue options, and it looks like it's going to stay that way in Riot Games' new tactical shooter. In a recent post from the developers where several hot topics were addressed, Riot explained why there's no Solo Queue option in Valorant and the efforts in place to accommodate those who still prefer to play by themselves.

Riot's Ian Fielding, product manager on Valorant, addressed the topic by saying that Valorant is first and foremost a team-oriented game. By this design, Riot doesn't want to have a Solo Queue mode become the sole, go-to indicator of individual skill and instead would prefer players work with their teammates.

"Having a solo queue can easily lead to that becoming the definitive test of someone's skills and the primary way to play competitively," Fielding said. "We've opted instead to allow players to play at any team size they prefer. We also think it's valuable for players to search for good teammates now for competitive play, so when higher-stakes competition becomes available, they already have teammates they can rely on."

For those who still prefer to push on by themselves without teaming up with other players before joining a game, Fielding said Riot has worked to make it so that players are pitted against other teams that consist of similar premade sizes. While winning a game is always the best way to improve your rank, Riot's also included a degree of performance-based movement in the system to benefit players who outperform their teammates.

"If you are playing solo or with smaller group sizes, we've worked to make it so our matchmaking will favor placing players against similar premade team sizes," Fielding continued. "Also, outside of playing at the highest rank, we've included measurement on a small degree of 'performance' in determining how your rank increases or decreases. So if you perform exceptionally well and have an outsized contribution to your team's win, you'll rank up faster."

Valorant just recently got a sizeable update that changed multiple parts of the game, so those patch notes are worth a look if you haven't seen them yet. A bunch of players also got banned from the game not long ago, so it's clear Riot's anti-cheat efforts haven't faltered during the closed beta.

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