How to Get a Valorant Beta Key, According to Riot
Riot Games’ new competitive shooter Valorant has taken Twitch by storm, pulling in record viewership for its closed beta and amassing a massive lead over each of the streaming platforms other top titles. While the publisher’s track record certainly helped develop hype for the tactical FPS, as did the fact that it is the first major release to have directly challenged Valve’s CS:GO, Valorant owes much of its breakout success to the studio handing out beta access to Twitch viewers in EU and North America.
But how exactly does it work? If you’re here, it’s likely you’ve been hanging around Twitch for hours now, watching Valorant streams in hopes for a drop, but have so far had no luck. In what follows, we explain how Riot’s beta drops work and how to maximize your chances to nab one.
How to Ensure You’re Eligible for a Valorant Closed Beta Drop
Time needed: 2 minutes
Here’s how to ensure eligibility for a Valorant Closed Beta entitlement drop. Remember, the beta is only available for Twitch viewers in the EU and NA for now.
- Sign up for a Riot Games account if you don’t already have one.
- Sign in to Twitch and connect it to your Riot Games account.
Scroll down to find the Riot Games option and hit the Connect button in front of it.
- Watch one of these Valorant Twitch streams for at least two hours.
This number – “roughly 2 [hours]” – was quoted in a blog post by Riot’s own Joe Ziegler and Anna Donlon. It is the minimum approximate watch time required to be eligible for a beta drop. You don’t have to stick to one stream for the entirety of the quoted time. You can divide your watch time between different streams, as long as they have drops enabled. You can pick any stream from the page linked above.
How to Improve Your Chances of Getting a Beta Drop
Once you are eligible, you can increase your chances of getting a beta drop by continuing to watch Valorant streams. Riot is handing out beta access at random, though those with higher watch times will be given higher “weight,” according to the studio. Adding more hours to your watch tally has “diminishing returns,” though, which means the more you watch, the less additional weight is added to your chances.
In short, watch as much as you can without exhausting yourself. You don’t have to leave a stream on before you go to sleep and just in case you were thinking of giving it a shot – no, opening several streams simultaneously will not multiply your watch time on the same account.
You will be notified if and when you receive a beta drop. You don’t have to be constantly online or in stream to receive one.
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