As a free-to-play game, Valorant offers players the chance to enjoy its gameplay without any expenses. You can unlock new agents and various cosmetic items by completing simple tasks. However, like other competitive disciplines, Valorant provides numerous options to spend real money to achieve maximum visual pleasure from the gameplay. Of course, the price for rare skins can be quite steep, so if you want to save money, you need to wait for a special event called Night Market, which we will discuss today. The Bo3 editorial team has created a detailed guide to Night Market for our readers to learn all the details of Valorant's main event.
What is a Night Market?
First of all, let's explain what Night Market in Valorant is, for those who may not know. Night Market (akin to a black market) is an in-game event that appears in the game every three months. The duration of each event varies and can last from 10 to 30 days. The essence of it is that each player gets a new section in the game client, where they find six closed cards. Flipping each card reveals a random weapon skin with a personal discount. Thus, players receive discounts on skins periodically, but there are certain limitations, which we will tell you about below.
Features of Night Market
While Riot Games created the event as a pleasant gift for players, it comes with its own features and certain limitations. A notable feature is the uniqueness of the Night Market content for each player. The skins available for purchase are randomly generated, so you might be disappointed if your friend or acquaintance has much better content than you. Unfortunately, there are more limitations. Firstly, the level of discounts on each skin varies from 10% to 49%, meaning you can't get a desired skin almost for free with a hypothetical 99% discount. Also, Riot Games have restrictions on the sets that can be included in the Night Market. Skins from Select, Deluxe, or Premium rarity sets are available, as well as melee weapon skins worth more than 3,550VP.
Additionally, skins in the Night Market must have been released no earlier than two acts ago, meaning you'll have to wait a significant amount of time to catch a new release on sale. Another disappointment for players is the impossibility of changing the skins obtained; the Valorant community has long been asking Riot Games to add the option to refresh the Night Market content.
How to access Night Market?
As mentioned earlier, finding the Night Market is quite simple. During the in-game event, enter the game client, and in the upper left corner, where your credits and settings are, a new section will appear.
After that, all you have to do is open the cards and either be happy or disappointed with the skins you get. It’s worth noting that in the Night Market, you cannot get two skins for the same weapon. Also, after a wave of criticism since the event's launch, Riot Games has artificially increased the chances of getting rare skins, and now each player is guaranteed access to two Premium rarity skins.
READ MORE: Every Easter Egg in Valorant Agent Teasers
When is the Next Night Market?
At the time of writing this guide, the current Night Market in Valorant is dedicated to the last act in Episode 7 and runs from December 13 to January 8, 2023. As we wrote earlier, the event approximately appears in the game every three months, allowing you to roughly calculate when the next market will open. Below, we show a list of all Night Market events to help readers understand when the next anticipated event will take place.
- Episode 1 Act 3 – December 10, 2020, to January 11, 2021
- Episode 2 Act 1 – February 11 to February 23, 2021
- Episode 2 Act 2 – April 8 to April 20, 2021
- Episode 2 Act 3 – June 2 to June 15, 2021
- Episode 3 Act 1 – July 28 to August 10, 2021
- Episode 3 Act 2 – September 29 to October 12, 2021
- Episode 3 Act 3 – December 9 to December 21, 2021
- Episode 4 Act 1 – February 9 to February 22, 2022
- Episode 4 Act 2 – April 6 to April 19, 2022
- Episode 4 Act 3 – May 18 to May 31, 2022
- Episode 5 Act 1 – July 20 to August 2, 2022
- Episode 5 Act 2 – September 28 to October 11, 2022
- Episode 5 Act 3 – December 7, 2022, to January 4, 2023
- Episode 6 Act 1 – February 15 to March 7, 2023
- Episode 6 Act 2 – April 5 to April 25, 2023
- Episode 6 Act 3 – May 14 to May 27, 2023
- Episode 7 Act 1 – August 9 to August 28, 2023
- Episode 7 Act 2 – October 11 to October 23, 2023
- Episode 7 Act 3 – December 13, 2023, to January 8, 2024
- Episode 8 Act 1 – January 31, 2024 to February 28, 2024
From the above list, it’s clear that the next Night Market will appear in the game in Episode 8, with its anticipated release planned for March 2024. It's important to note that Riot Games never deviates from the scheduled dates and does not shift the market, so we can confidently say that the anticipated discounts will be seen again in March next year.
Importance of Night Market for the community
Finally, we want to discuss how the Night Market has impacted the Valorant community. Users eagerly await each event, and apart from discounts, this is influenced by the game's internal shop system. In Valorant, you can't immediately buy a skin you like; instead, you have to wait for the shop rotation to change and hope that the desired skin will be on sale. Therefore, the Night Market is an additional chance to get the coveted skin, especially at a lower price. It’s worth mentioning that the last market was critically received by the game community. Users on Reddit and other platforms complain about incredibly poor randomness and terrible skins available for purchase. Some players even theorize that the Night Market exists not for players to buy discounted skins, but rather to spend more real money on Valorant.
Despite all its flaws, the Night Market is an important part of Valorant and is warmly received by the community. Now, after reading our article, you know all the details of the event, so if you plan to spend a little money, hurry to the current Night Market, or wait for the new one.
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