Beginning May 5, the VALORANT closed beta will be extending to three new regions for play, including South Korea, Brazil, and most of Latin America. Unfortunately, Mexico will need to wait a little while longer as the infrastructure there has not yet been completed. Speaking in the video below is VALORANT Executive Producer Anna Donlon, who speaks to the experience of working on the closed beta thus far.
Riot Games is making great strides and learning from the closed beta, and they hope to expand their player base to include Oceania, Japan, South East Asia, the greater Middle East, and more as soon as possible.
While Covid-19 has clearly had a role in slowing the development of this infrastructure, Donlon also describes how there has been the added issue of preventing voice recording from happening as well. As a result, planned localization efforts for many of these regions has slowed to a crawl and is probably a reason that the delay remains ongoing.
While May 5 is the date that the regions will open, Donlon did not specify how access would be granted. It is reasonable to assume that Twitch Drops for regional specific streamers will be activated similar to the initial rollout, meaning that hopeful participants will need to link their Twitch accounts with the Riot Games account and watch a drop-enabled streamer for access.
NEXT: There’s No Freddy Krueger Game Yet (And It’s Killing Us)
