Riot is "prototyping" Valorant on consoles but only if it's certain the port "can deliver the experience"
"We're not entirely sure Valorant translates completely to console play."
It's only been out on PC for a few days, but already Riot Games is exploring the possibilities of bringing its new shooter, Valorant, to consoles.
In an interview with GameSpot, however, executive producer Anna Donlon admitted porting to consoles "wasn't the focus out of the gate" but "if [Riot] feels like [it] can deliver this experience on those platforms, [it] absolutely will", providing it can maintain a "strong level of competitive integrity".
"We are definitely prototyping that right now," Donlon told the site. "But there's a way to play this game and there's a way to experience this game that we're not entirely sure translates completely to console play.
"If we feel like we can deliver this experience on those platforms, we absolutely will," Donlon added. "But we really want Valorant to stand for a certain type of gameplay and a certain type of experience.
"It's not a no, for sure," Donlon explained, admitting that some devs are "very excited" to explore the idea of bringing Valorant on consoles. "But it definitely wasn't the focus out of the gate. If we were to do it, it'll definitely be delayed."
Valorant's closed beta pulled in 3m daily players, although we'll have to wait to see how Valorant's player numbers measure up to other big titles such as Fortnite and Minecraft post-launch, of course.
Valorant's popularity on Twitch is hardly surprising. As Emma recently reported, Riot has encouraged close ties between the two from the start, handing out beta keys to players once they'd linked their Riot and Twitch accounts and watched specific Valorant streams. Everyone being stuck in lockdown has probably helped both player numbers and stream views quite a bit: Twitch's overall viewership recently grew 99 per cent year-on-year to 1.5bn hours watched in April, of which Valorant was responsible for 334m (via Gamesindustry.biz).
