Turns out Riot Games' latest class-based first-person shooter, Valorant, is optimized for high performance on even the lowest-end PC rigs. With exciting news floating around the gaming community after Valorant's latest press release, gamers are readying themselves for its summer 2020 release date.

Valorant piqued the interest of FPS enthusiasts around the world after its' initial announcement during League of Legend's 10th Anniversary Livestream. The game is a 5v5 class-based first-person shooter taking influence from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's strategy-based warfare, coupled with Overwatch's class-based abilities. Today's official gameplay trailer for Valorant depicted flashy ability animations, high-end textures, and fine visual quality. The trailer has players excited to dive in, but whether a new game is playable for all computers is always a concern.

According to PC Gamer, Valorant's developers have done a fantastic job of prioritizing hardware and software optimization. Riot stated Valorant is playable to at least 30 frames per second, "on most-min spec computers (even dating back to a decade)." To better understand the minimum requirements, Riot has outlined the baseline for each performance tier:

Tier 1: Minimum requirements (30 FPS):

-OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-Bit)

-RAM: 4 GM

-CPU: Intel i3-370 M

-GPU: Intel HD 3000 (1 GB VRAM)

Tier 2: Recommended requirements (60+ FPS)

-OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-Bit)

-RAM: 4 GM

-CPU: Intel i3-370 M

-GPU: Intel HD 3000 (1 GB VRAM)

Tier 3: High-end requirements (144+ FPS)

-OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-Bit)

-RAM: 4 GM

-CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2 GHz

-GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti (1 GB VRAM)


Performance across the detailed tiers will vary and improves with better hardware. It's easy to see that Valorant's mindful design satisfies the majority of current-day PC rigs. For perspective, the minimum and recommended CPUs and GPUs released nearly 10 years ago. The Intel i3-370 M released in August of 2010, and the Intel HD Graphics 3000 was announced in 2011. PC gamers always find a way to stretch the lifetime of their expensive hardware. Still, most equipment from this era is incompatible with current generation motherboards and has therefore been phased out.

Riot Games' mindful design comes at a time where PC games are pushing for the next bigger and better peripheral. Game design has become ever more complicated, making triple-A titles unplayable at times for low-end computers and non-gaming laptops. The ability of Valorant to perform well on a wide range of computers is smart because it greatly widens the demographic. Not all PC gamers, especially on the younger side of the spectrum, have access to top-of-the-line gaming equipment. Creating a game with high-quality visual design and attractive gameplay is one thing, but making it accessible in an industry where a huge gap in hardware exists is a whole task in and of itself. These specifications give a general idea of what's needed to play Valorant. However, the true test of Riot's claim will come during the game's closed beta.

Valorant will release for most PC global regions in the summer of 2020.