VALORANT’s Escalation mode isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Principal producer Jared Berbach discussed the chaotically-fun game mode in a Twitter thread today, explaining that “it’s going to stay up” for now. As for the future of VALORANT, Riot devs “envision a future” where modes will rotate in and out periodically.
“For now, as long as queues are healthy and matches are quick to get into, [Escalation is] going to stay up,” Berbach said. “[In the future] we expect to be rotating more modes in and out, similarly to how we rotated out Snowball Fight.”
Riot added festive cheer to VALORANT during the holidays in the form of Snowball Fight, which allowed players to pummel each other with snow while collecting power-ups across the map. While that mode was limited to the season, Deathmatch, Spike Rush, and Escalation appear to be permanent additions to the tac shooter.
Spike Rush was initially supposed to be a limited-time mode, according to Berbach. But its “demand,” “queue health,” and “sustained engagement” were strong enough to warrant its place in the ecosystem. To determine a mode’s permanence, the devs use player data in terms of hours and satisfaction as a guide.
Berbach offered another captivating thread last weekend, explaining that a potential “warmup mode” may come in the future to satisfy players who want an infinite Deathmatch-style session. But the mode is fairly complex to create since it’d allow players to join matches that are already in progress. There would also be a possibility of warming up while in a queue for a match.
There’s no timetable yet on when this VALORANT warm-up mode could be released.
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