VALORANT’s ranked mode will likely kick off “some time next week,” Riot says

VALORANT game director Joe Ziegler told fans what they want to hear today—ranked is coming soon.

The Riot dev explained that Competitive mode will “likely be out some time next week.” This week will be spent making sure that the release is stable and ready to go.

While a ranked mode was present in the VALORANT closed beta, devs decided to hold off on releasing it with the game’s official launch. Riot’s “initial focus” was making sure the servers were stable before activating competitive matchmaking, according to the Patch 1.0 notes.

The devs also wanted to give new players the “same courtesy” that beta players received, allowing them to learn the game a bit before jumping into ranked.

Even though VALORANT‘s current mode is unrated, it’ll likely still affect what rank players get. In the closed beta, players accrued a hidden MMR based on their performance in unrated games. This transferred to who you matched up against in placement matches and ultimately what rank you got, Ziegler previously explained.

While Riot hasn’t explained how ranked seeding will work in VALORANT‘s official launch, it’ll most likely follow the same principle.