Valorant moving to Unreal Engine 5 could “expand the Val universe into new playable experiences”

It’s been a big year for Valorant so far. We’ve had two new agents through episodes 8 and 9, the multiplayer shooter finally landed on PS5 and Xbox consoles, and there’s also been a new map. While all of this has been fantastic, Riot has now announced that the game is soon switching to UE5. Not all of the details have been revealed yet, but Riot has teased that Valorant moving to Unreal Engine 5 could “expand the Val universe into new playable experiences”.

The newest agent introduced so far is Vyse, and she arrived at the beginning of Act 2. According to the new patch schedule, the next update is set to arrive on October 8th, meanwhile, Act 3 is scheduled to start on October 23rd. For the here and now you can check out the update 9.06 patch notes to see the most recent changes implemented by Riot.

While Act 3 is something to look forward to and offers a clear deadline for the current Act 2 battle pass, something even bigger to anticipate is Valorant switching to Unreal Engine 5. No date for the transition has been announced, but the possibilities have been teased.

Valorant moving to Unreal Engine 5 explained

Valorant studio head, Anna Donlon, was at Unreal Fest 2024 where it was announced that Riot Games is transitioning their multiplayer shooter from Unreal Engine 4 to UE5. We don’t know exactly when the move will happen, but it’s been teased as soon.

There is an acknowledgement that Valorant isn’t the most impressive game on the market visually, but the Unreal Engine has been a huge asset in providing a strong foundation and allowing Riot to focus on “player orientation”. UE4 was also key to finally getting the game on PlayStation and Xbox’s current-gen consoles.

As for UE5, Anna Donlon has tempered expectations for the imminent future. The studio head said, “This upgrade is not going to significantly change how Val looks or performs, at least not right away”.

Donlan also admitted, “I could not rattle off UE5 features that are transforming Val as we know it”. While players shouldn’t expect a earth-shattering change right away, there are still “many developers who are very excited about what UE5 can do for [Valorant] in the future”.

Nothing was explicitly mentioned, but the studio head teased “Maybe those devs are working on something I can’t talk about”. It was also suggested “Maybe those devs are thinking about ways to expand the Val universe into new playable experiences”.

You can check out Riot’s Unreal Engine 5 announcement in the embedded video below from IGN:

For more Valorant, check out our 18 tips on how to get better at the game along with our guide for how to appear offline if you don’t want certain friends knowing you’re playing. We also have guides for how to chat with the team, all, and private, along with how to add friends.