A few days ago, Riot Games released a video on their YouTube channel marking the official launch of the discipline in the Celestial Empire, three years after the game's release.
The video lasts 3 minutes and shows a match between game characters in animated aesthetics. The confrontation takes place on the Split map, which is closest to the Asian theme, although according to the game's story, it is located in Tokyo, Japan. The match is accompanied by music styled with an Asian motif, and the video ends with the phrase "Erase the boundaries" in different languages.
Valorant's History in China
Despite the fact that the game was released in 2020, the project was not officially approved by the Chinese authorities, which seemed quite strange compared to another game from Riot Games – League of Legends. Yes, professional Chinese teams have been in Valorant for a long time, but there were no official regional leagues and tournaments, so teams played in small local tournaments. The deadlock was broken in the winter of 2022 when the National Chinese Press Association issued a license to publish 44 foreign games, among which was Valorant. The developers later confirmed this.
📰 #VALORANT is now approved in China. 🇨🇳 pic.twitter.com/Yfxp6HWua9
— Run It Back | rib.gg (@rib_gg) December 28, 2022
After this, Riot Games began actively preparing for the official launch of the game, a separate competitive region was created for Chinese professional players. And Chinese teams began to receive separate invitations to various tournaments, thanks to cooperation with the Chinese FGC series, whose tournaments are the most famous professional competitive league in China.
Valorant's Launch in China
The official release took place on July 12, 2023, of course, like most foreign projects, Valoran was subject to censorship. The blood effect is cut out of the game and there are no animations of dead bodies. In honor of the game's release in China, Riot Games released a new unique set of skins called "Ignite". The peculiarity of it is that the pink color will be available for purchase only for players from the Chinese region, and blue for all others. You can read more about the set in our article.
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