Valorant had a huge closed beta launch day. While Day 1 definitely had its lows, as Riot Games dealt with server issues throughout the day, Valorant entered the record books with the third highest peak Twitch viewership of all time. We also got some good news yesterday evening. As Valorant Game director RiotZiegler confirmed, drops will continue all week long (and beyond!). In line with that, several affiliated streamers have confirmed that drops will be enabled today, April 8, at 8:00 AM PDT / 11:00 AM EDT. For those of you reading when this article goes out, that’s two hours from now.
Update (11:00 AM): We can confirm that drops are now enabled! Check out the list of qualifying streams here.
A big first day
As we mentioned earlier, Valorant had a massive first day. At times, more than 1.7 million accounts tuned in concurrently. This mark was good for the third-highest ever, dethroning the record set by the Fortnite World Cup Finals in 2019. We use the word “accounts” instead of “viewers” because a large number of connections were bots or duplicate streams. There was also a vast number of people who only tuned in for closed beta drops. These “viewers” would turn a stream on, mute it, and minimize it. Nevertheless, a record is a record and Valorant set one yesterday.
How to get access to the Valorant closed beta
As we’ve already covered extensively, the only way to get closed beta access right now is via Twitch drops. To do this, players must first sign up for accounts with Riot Games and Twitch. Then, those accounts need to be linked in your Twitch settings. Finally, you must watch any Valorant stream that has the “Drops Enabled” tag. Be cautious of streamers who mention drops in their broadcast titles but don’t actually have the tag.
Please note that watching more than one stream at a time will not help your chances. It also does not matter which stream you watch, or how many viewers are on each stream. Riot and Twitch seem to be using a system that rewards keys uniformly across all qualifying broadcasts.
For a quick and easy visual guide, check out this great walkthrough by popular Twitch streamer, Pokimane!
Want to stay up to date on all of the latest news and guides for your new favorite game? Stay tuned with the Daily Esports Valorant portal!
