The third act of Valorant is set to bring a number of new additions to the competitive shooter. Apart from the new agent, map, Battle Pass, and a revamped competitive system, Act 3 will also bring new servers to North Africa and the Middle East, as previously confirmed by Riot Games themselves.
However, the devs confirmed today that Indian servers will be going live alongside the Middle Easter servers on the same date.
Update : Official: Valorant Mumbai Servers Will Go Live On October 14th
In a Reddit thread complaining about ping problems in Bahrain servers, a fan asked the devs, “Do you have any update on Indian servers? The south Asian gamers are really tired of hype and want to have some real update that we can depend upon.”
To which, Riot dev ‘ZealousApathy’ replied, confirmed the news – Indian servers will be going live in Act 3, but will remain in the Asia Pacific shard.
“They’ll be online at the same time as Bahrain, but India will stay in the Asia Pacific shard,” the dev said.
This is undoubtedly amazing news for the South Asian Valorant player base since from now on, they’ll be receiving considerably lower latencies when playing compared to the South-East Asian servers.
WHAT’S NEW IN ACT 3?
COMPETITIVE CHANGES
The competitive game mode will undergo a number of changes most of which are aimed at improving the queues in the higher ranks.
1) The queue range for competitive matchmaking will be tightened from six tiers to three. This means that if you’re a Diamond 3 player, you’ll only be able to queue with players whose ranks range from Platinum 3 to Immortal 3. This change will hurt players who queue with friends having a large skill gap, but will result in a better matchmaking experience overall.
2) Players will be able to select their preferred servers before joining a queue. However, it can’t be guaranteed that players will always be matched in their preferred servers.
3) Immortal plus players’ ranks will be affected entirely based on their wins and losses instead of individual performance.
NEW AGENT
The next agent is an Australian named Skye. She has been voiced by a native Australian and packs a skillset filled with a utility that can easily turn the tides of a battle if used correctly. Her abilities include:
- An AoE heal which can be used to heal her allies but not herself.
- A drone that can be controlled remotely to gain vision and damage/stun enemies.
- A bird that can be used to scout out areas and detonated at will to flash enemies looking at it.
- An Ultimate which sends out three wolves to hunt down enemies, stunning them on impact.
Judging by her abilities, it’s obvious that Skye is set to be a support/initiator. All of her abilities excel in taking control of crucial parts of the maps and the AoE heal has a huge range.
Combine that with the controllable flashes and she can potentially be one of the best agents in the entire game.
Skye will be available to play from October 27th.
NEW MAP
As mentioned earlier, Icebox will be a snow-themed map that is located on a shipyard in Tundra. The map features two bomb sites and ziplines to help players move through certain sections faster. The map will arrive alongside Act 3 but won’t be available for competitive play until two weeks later. You can take the initial looks at the map from the trailer posted by Riot earlier:
BATTLE PASS AND THE ‘SINGULARITY’ COLLECTION
Act 3 will feature an all-new battle pass being added to the game with its release. The updated Battle Pass will feature a new rewards line for the players to obtain by leveling it up. The rewards will consist of exclusive items like skins, buddies, player cards, and can be upgraded to the premium version for even better rewards. Some of the skins from the Battle Pass that have been revealed include the Ruin Vandal, Ruin Shorty, and Ruin Dagger.
The Singularity collection will be an entirely new and separate skin collection that’ll be added to the game alongside Act 3. It will feature skins of Sherrif, Spectre, Phantom, Ares, and a melee.
These, along with new servers for the Middle East and North Africa, are all the changes that you can expect for now in the upcoming Act 3 of Valorant. How do you feel the new map and agent will change the current competitive scenario? Be sure to let us know in the comments.
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