No more testing on live updates! A Public Beta Environment (PBE) server will soon make its way to Valorant.
Having a Valorant test server can help Riot devs preview upcoming content, test patches before official launch, and gain some insight regarding community feedback.
Riot’s PBE
This won’t be the first time for Riot to use a test server.
In fact, Riot Games is known to use the League of Legends PBE to test upcoming content, patches, and gather feedback from fans and its player community.
It didn’t take long for the native testing environment to finally make its way over to the hyped, 5v5 tactical shooter.
Valorant Senior release manager, Corrie Hardin, detailed an upcoming test server in a recent blog post.
The feature is expected to be fully implemented some time around the first half of 2021.
“We will be creating a selectively updated pre-release environment, or PBE, some time in the first half of 2021. Specific features/queues will be advertised or limited and patches will be targeted for a certain length of time in advance of going live.”
She highlights the similar feature on another popular Riot title, League of Legends:
“For those that are familiar with the League of Legends PBE, this will serve a similar purpose. We hope to expand on what we have learned and provide an early access experience that does not drastically differ from the live version of VALORANT, but still allows for a glimpse into what we are working on.”
Having a Public Beta Environment similar to LoL will give the devs some crucial information to avoid any possible bugs or issues.
“This will also help us to gather more information so we can capture performance changes and expose bugs early that players might run into.”
No stranger to bugs
Bugs and other in-game issues plague Valorant, especially during a new map or agent is introduced into the game.
For instance, the introduction of the new map Icebox with the launch of Act III had some players finding a number of exploits.
Omen players can easily teleport under Kitchen and Killjoy can set her turret outside the map and let it poke at opponents without getting destroyed.
Even the Valorant dev team acknowledged these notorious bugs and exploits in an official tweet.
“Thanks for bearing with us while we fix the issues with Icebox. We’ve squashed most of the serious bugs, but there are a few (including an audio glitch) that the next patch will fix. Until then, you can still play on Icebox in Unrated, but, like always, be ready for anything.”
Having a PBE can then reduce the number of potential exploits and bugs, which would greatly improve the general in-game experience by players.
Some players are happy with the introduction of a PBE on Valorant, calling it a needed feature for the game:
“Good, it needs it if they have any hope of fixing bugs on time and making Valorant a true esport”
