Riot Games has partnered with more than 20 esports organizations to create unique competitive VALORANT events as part of the newly-announced Ignition Series.
Whalen Rozelle, senior director of esports at Riot, explained the new VALORANT initiative in a blog post today. The Ignition Series will “unlock the creative potential of some of our top partners and will help us build an esport from the ground up that is authentic to the VALORANT community,” Rozelle said.
Each event organizer will operate their own Ignition Series tournament, with variations that will include competitive open qualifiers, showmatches, and invitationals. This will range from aspiring amateurs to established personalities and top players.
The series, according to Riot, will “provide players with the opportunity to begin building their region’s competitive legacy.”
The first episode of the Ignition Series will take place on June 19 with the European G2 Esports Invitational, presented by Red Bull, closely followed by the Rage VALORANT Japan Invitational.
In the future, the series will be produced for fans in North America, Brazil, Latin America, Korea, Japan, South East Asia, Oceania, Europe, Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East, spanning across the world.
During VALORANT’s closed beta—released in April 2020—more than 100 tournaments and invitationals took place. With the launch of the game in June, Riot looks to “grow VALORANT esports globally by making it easier to follow competitions through a more organized cadence of events.”
The Ignition Series will run on a weekly basis and spotlight a select number of tournaments to help discover “talented players” and “build global recognition” for top VALORANT teams, according to Riot.
