The recent matchdays of VCT 2025: EMEA Stage 1 have been marked by a significant number of technical pauses due to issues with player devices and other equipment. Daniel Ringland, Head of VALORANT Esports for the EMEA region, commented on the situation and promised to find a solution.

Towards the end of the third week of competition, and also after it concluded, matches saw an increase in the number of technical pauses — sometimes up to four or more per map. The reasons varied, but they usually involved malfunctions with players’ devices or other hardware.

The issue grew so widespread that viewers started making predictions about the number of pauses even before the start of a matchday. This affected not only players and organizers but also fans — matches often dragged on late into the night, and many didn’t stay to watch them to the end.

Daniel Ringland has finally addressed the situation. He apologized to the community and explained that, for now, it's impossible to fully eliminate the problems, since the Berlin studio where the matches are held is used almost daily. Because of this, the technical team doesn’t have time for a complete system diagnosis. The only potential solution could be moving the matches to online servers, but the organizers aren’t considering that option, as it would significantly worsen the gameplay experience. You can find his more detailed comment below.

Resolving this is a really complex challenge while we’re in the middle of the Regular Season, because the studio is being used almost everyday, giving us little time to take systems offline and investigate thoroughly. It also requires the attention of multiple teams, both on-site and around the world, and involves everything from network infrastructure to game and client access.

That has meant that in order to continue matches without extended delays, we’ve had to temporarily switch to online servers. Unfortunately, this introduced new challenges, including ping-related issues leading to further tech pauses.

We have a window between the end of the Regular Season and Playoffs kicking off on May 8 during which time we'll be able to more deeply investigate the issue and find a solution that gets us back to the standards fans deserve. We’ll continue to keep you updated, including sharing the progress we’ve made ahead of the Playoffs beginning. 

Daniel Ringland

According to Ringland, the Riot Games team will try to resolve the issue in the break between the end of the group stage and the playoffs, in order to restore proper match quality. The group stage will end on April 25 and the playoffs will begin on May 8. That means the team will have 12 days to solve the problem.