Following years of rumors, a console version of Valorant was finally confirmed at Summer Game Fest on Friday. The first-person shooter has been available on PC for four years now, and will finally be coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S at some point in 2024. Riot Games hasn't offered much in the way of details just yet, but product management lead Coleman Palm did address one feature that won't be appearing on console: gyro aiming.
"Not a blind spot for us fwiw, but it's not supported on Xbox controllers natively. If we leaned super hard into gyro being 'the way to play' on console we'd be heavily favoring PS5>Xbox, which we don't want to do," said Palm. Hope for the FutureSome players noted their disappointment with that decision, arguing that gyro controls are the closest thing to the precision offered by a mouse. While Valorant will not offer the feature when the game makes its console debut, Palm was quick to note that the developers are excited about playing around with the technology. The implication seems to be that we could see gyro aiming on PS5 at some point, just not right away.
"Not opposed to supporting it outright, we just wanted to focus innovations on more standard control paradigms out the gate to support players on both platforms. There are some folks internally who are pretty excited about gyro and have been for awhile," Palm clarified. Making Valorant Worth the WaitIt's easy to see why Riot Games decided to prioritize traditional controls at the start, rather than focusing on an option that isn't on both platforms. The reality is, Valorant has been hugely successful, and console users have long been hoping to see the game make the jump to other platforms. Making sure that the game is as balanced as possible is going to be critical to making sure Valorant's success carries over to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.