Since VALORANT is one of the biggest titles in the industry, it requires the utmost care to pull off such precision and team-based gameplay without accidentally plaguing it with bugs and glitches.
This is where Public Beta Environments (PBE) come into play—a method used by Riot Games to test out meaningful updates, such as nerfs or buffs to agents and weapons, in its own servers before they officially go live so as not to disrupt the rest of the player base.
How does the VALORANT PBE work?
The PBE realm allows players to test out new features, updates, and changes to the VALORANT meta. Once a patch rolls out, players will get to access the limited-time VALORANT PBE. With each patch, there’ll be one weekend for players to dip their toes into and find out what needs changing.
Once dates are locked in, the VALORANT test realm opens on Friday at around 6pm CT and closes the following Monday at around 1pm CT.
When is the next VALORANT PBE?
The next VALORANT PBE is tentatively scheduled for Friday, Jan. 5, 2024, around the usual time of 6pm CT alongside new patch notes for the 8.00 update. Assuming the development team sticks to the regular schedule, it will run up until Monday, Jan. 8, 2024, right before the launch of Episode Eight. There will then be a three-week break until another PBE, which should begin on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024, followed by a PBE on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024.
As always, these dates are subject to change and this article will be updated accordingly should new information be shared.
What’s included in the next VALORANT PBE?
At the time of writing, exactly what will be featured in the next VALORANT PBE is unclear. There’s no official information from Riot about it, but our best guess is that it’ll mainly prepare for the first act of Episode Eight. It’s claimed this update will finally introduce VALORANT‘s first new weapon in four years as well as another new playable agent. Their design has apparently leaked already, but official details remain a mystery.
