What's next for Valorant?
Valorant's most recent patch was the big release of the new Act, and with this come a fair amount of changes, but nothing compared to previous patches.
With Riot recently changing a few agents, the next update should balance these out further and adjust some quality of life issues.
Here's what you need to know regarding Patch 5.08
Release Date
5.08 should be the last patch this Act, and thus should release around October 17th, 2022.
5.08 Patch Notes
Reminder: this is the start of Episode 5 Act III and that means there’s a number of new things that aren’t featured below: the return of the Ion skinline, a whole new Battlepass and a reset of ranks.
AGENT UPDATES
HARBOR GOES LIVE!
- Learn his abilities on our Agents page.
- Watch the newest Controller in action in his debut trailer.
BUGS
AGENTS
- Fixed an issue where friendly versions of area-damage abilities could overwrite enemy versions of those abilities to deal less damage
- Fixed a bug where Viper’s Toxic Screen could have small gaps around ground level in specific map locations
GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS
- Fixed various minimap bugs:
- Ally position indicators would persist on the edge of minimap even after ally came back into view
- In some cases, KAY/O’s Suppression Blade position indicator could appear twice on the minimap
- Opening the larger map (defaulted to Caps Lock and ‘M’) during round transition could cause spawn barriers to appear as a single pixel
- “Recently Seen Enemy” icon indicators could sometimes update their position without the enemy being visible
MAPS
- PEARL
- Fixed a sliver line of sight from A Main to A Link
New Agent: Harbor
Harbor, the newest Control agent, has some interest abilities and are as follows:
-
Cove
- EQUIP a sphere of shielding water. FIRE to throw. ALT FIRE to underhand throw. Upon impacting the ground, spawn a water shield that blocks bullets.
-
High Tide
- EQUIP a wall of water. FIRE to send the water forward along the ground. Hold Fire to guide the water in the direction of your crosshair, spawning a wall along the water’s path. Alt Fire to stop the water early. Players that hit are SLOWED.
-
Cascade
- EQUIP a wave of water. FIRE to send the wave rolling forward and through walls. RE-USE to stop the wave. Players hit are SLOWED.
-
Ultimate Ability: Reckoning
- EQUIP the full power of your Artifact. FIRE to summon a geyser pool on the ground. Enemy players in the area are targeted by successive geyser strikes. Players caught within a strike are CONCUSSED.
New Valorant Interface
Our UX, UI, Engineering, and QA teams at VALORANT are excited to share some upcoming UX/UI visual changes that will start rolling out in Patch 5.08. These updates are focused on the out of game experience (outside of gameplay) and will bring a fresh sense of style while improving functionality in some areas.
The change means some previous functionality may be missing, but we’re still looking at your feedback as we roll out this update. Let’s break down why we’re working hard on a revamp, as well as our process and thinking around these updates.
WHY NOW?
The team isn’t updating for the sake of it. We are preparing for the future of VALORANT, including new features we can’t wait to talk about when the time is right. For now, we are excited to iterate towards a premium UX/UI front end experience that reflects the overall direction the game is heading. This includes reevaluating our UX/UI standards, assessing art fidelity, and introducing motion design to boost game flow and expression. Additionally, this revamp will better prepare us for a more consistent look and functionality as we work towards future platform experiences.
OUR PROCESS
To kick things off, we created a special task-force team to guide these efforts. This group’s goal was to identify how to converge efforts across UX, UI, Engineering, and QA to plus-up our game client and allow future scalability more easily. Some areas/tasks they tackled included:
- Auditing areas of opportunity in core game flow screens
- Defining where we can build consistency in design choices
- Building game engine enhancements
- Determined the backbone of our client and explored compatible multiplatform navigation options
- Broad style explorations at a high level to test our key assumptions
- Leveling up how we present VALORANT style and aesthetic in game
You’ve likely already noticed the start of this work in Patch 5.03. The Agent Browser UI was the first release of this greater effort. The team replaced our Agents’ textures with their 2D key art illustrations and updated the color schemes behind them to better convey their iconic and expressive personalities. This is just the start! We already have greater ambitions for this screen, along with many others.
A SNEAK PEEK
With the goal of bringing together visually rich, vibrant, and fresh interfaces to unify our game and marketing visual identities, the first update we want to share is our new MVP screen.
You’ll also start to see a new lobby, pre-match loading screen, and End of Game screens with designs meant to improve legibility.
ON THE HORIZON
Like we said at the start, expect more updates and iterations that bring motion design and overarching visual polish throughout the game. Multiple VALORANT teams are in the process of redefining the user experience and visual fidelity of many features. Any and all new features hoping to ship this year will be developed under the new visual direction with room for additional enhancement.
Once you get your hands on this, we want to know if there’s functionality you’re missing so we can continue iterating and improving the UI. We look forward to sharing more!
