The VALORANT closed Beta is expanding its reach to new regions. On May 5th, Latin America, Brasil, and Korea will join North America and Europe on the closed Beta for VALORANT. Riot Games' Anna "RiotSuperCakes" Donlon, the Executive 'Decider of Things' for the VALORANT team, gave a short vlog announcement regarding the news, as well as more specifics in terms of the next phases of global rollout for the closed Beta. The announcement reads as follows:

"Hey everyone, it’s me again...Last month we chatted on the impact that COVID-19 was having on the global rollout of VALORANT, especially during the closed Beta, and I’m here today with an update. We have made a ton of progress over the last month and we have learned so many lessons about what we need to get ready for launch.

Closed Beta is about stress-testing all of our systems — things like servers; hardware compatibility; anti-cheat technology; game balance — all of these things are so important to tune in before we launch, and nothing can top the lessons we are learning from watching all of you play.

It is also super humbling to see how many more players want to get into the game, so I’m here to assure you that our top priority is getting as many of you around the world into the game as soon as we can, so I’ll start with some good news: Annyeonghaseyo, Korea! Vamos, Latinoamérica! Bora, Brasil!

Beginning May 5th, we’ll be able to welcome South Korea and most of LATAM into the global VALORANT closed Beta community with data centers going online in Seoul, Santiago, and São Paulo. As for Mexico City, we want to get you into this closed Beta so badly, but this is where we have hit the majority of our infrastructure delays. While we might not be able to get you in exactly on the 5th, we will be getting you in as soon as we can.

For the regions I haven’t mentioned yet like Oceania, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the greater Middle East: I know being asked to wait a little longer is not what you want to be hearing right now, but I really do appreciate your patience during these uncertain times.

Speaking of uncertain times, global infrastructure rollout is not the only thing that’s been impacted by COVID-19. For example: With recording studios around the world being shut down, it’s been really difficult to localize a lot of our agent VO, so you may experience some mixed-language voiceover, and that’s not ideal. Also, in areas where we do have our servers online, we are still working out some latency kinks. You might be experiencing some higher ping than we’re comfortable with, but we do have plans for all of this.

Finally, because of the unique impact that COVID-19 is having on the entire world, internet consumption is at an all-time high. ISPs are finding themselves having to juggle who gets routed where, so we are actively troubleshooting with how this might be impacting your games. But none of these are excuses, they are amazing challenges for us to overcome as we bring VALORANT to you, and we are so, so excited to be on this journey with all of you.

Every day the team is watching streams, playing games, fixing issues reported by all of you, and just taking in the hype of this entire community. We cannot wait to welcome in new regions, new play styles, new perspectives, and we’re just getting started. We’re looking forward to welcoming you and playing with all of you soon. Thanks everyone!"

For more content on VALORANT, Riot Games' highly-anticipated tactical shooter set for release this year, head over to our dedicated VALORANT section!