Riot Games announced a public beta environment, or PBE, a year after VALORANT’s release. A select group of North American accounts will have access to the public test realm starting on July 9. Players can sign up for PBE using the Riot Games’ signup page and their VALORANT account.
According to Riot’s announcement, the organization has introduced the PBE to help smooth out their patch cycle and find bugs. The test realm will also be used to test the stability of the next patch in terms of new additions. Players will test out agent, gun and balance changes, along with anything else normally seen in VALORANT’s patch notes. But, the main goal for Riot seems to be identifying bugs that may get through to the live patch.
“Emphasis here on IDENTIFYING BUGS. This will be for testing features that are just about ready to ship and need a final pass to catch issues,” the announcement said.
How will the new VALORANT PBE work
A VALORANT test environment—known as the PBE—will open to a limited number of VALORANT accounts.
Read more about how it will work and how to apply in our post. https://t.co/qn6GF8g5as pic.twitter.com/kZ4OEoOAyL— VALORANT (@VALORANT) June 17, 2021
The test realm will be available over one weekend before each patch. It will go live about two weeks before the patch goes to live servers. Those who make the cut will test out the new patch and report any bugs or problems in a PBE subreddit megathread. The subreddit will be the hub for VALORANT’s PBE; any issues or announcements with the test realm will go through it. Additionally, it will list features and changes that PBE players should test in their games.
Unlike Riot’s other PBE in League of Legends, VALORANT’s test realm will not be open at all times. Riot also reserves the right to end the testing early or close it out due to game breaking bugs or problems.
The new VALORANT PBE launches on July 9, just a few days after a new patch of the cycle is up to date.
