VALORANT replays are coming in patch 11.06, but limited features are criticised

After years of waiting, and years of begging, fans are finally on the verge of having an in-game replay system. Coming in patch 11.06, VALORANT replays will allow players to rewatch matches within the game; pausing, rewinding, fast-forwarding, and changing POVs. But a number of glaring omissions have left much of the community underwhelmed.

VALORANT replays only available for your own games

VALORANT’s new replay system will only allow players to access replays of their own games.

Replays will also only be available for Ranked and Premier matches, though there’s an expectation that this will be expanded to custom games.

The current absence of replays for custom matches will be of particular frustration to those competing professionally, whose scrim matches would typically be played using this mode and would arguably benefit the most from having access to the replay system.

Replays are also unavailable for official competitive matches, such as those within the VALORANT Champions Tour or Game Changers circuits.

A number of content creators were afforded the chance to try the replay system early. One of those, Brazilian streamer Guilherme “Tixinha” Cheida, revealed in a post on X that when quizzing developers on future replays for pro games, he was told that there is no intent for replays of “other people” to be introduced.

In a YouTube video, Tixinha went into detail on the features that are available, which do include access to the POV of all players that were in the match — the only way to view VODs of others.

The replay system’s user interface includes the abilities to play/pause, skip backwards/forwards by 5 seconds, skip rounds, change playback speed, and switch between player POVs and a free-moving camera.

Limitations criticised

The inability to be able to view games other than one’s own quickly drew criticism from those within the VALORANT community once the replay system’s features were revealed.

Two-time Masters winner and Sentinels legend Tyson “TenZ” Ngo gave his thoughts in a post on X, questioning the point of releasing the tool if other people’s games cannot be viewed.

“Won’t be able to analyze high level play to actually learn and VOD review as a team. Can’t even make a frag movie without account sharing? Feels like they are listening but not understanding what the community has been asking for”

Replays a long time coming, patch 11.06 the arrival

The lack of a replay system has been a constant criticism from VALORANT players since the games launch in 2020. Billed as a competitor to the hugely popular tactical FPS Counter-Strike, the various iterations of VALORANT’s biggest rival have included replay systems in some way or another for more than two decades, including the ability to download and share demos in order to view replays of others.

VALORANT’s replay system was first announced by Anna Donlan, Head of VALORANT Studios, in a video in April, before a development update the following month showed the first previews of how the tool would look in-game.

Now the feature will finally be added as part of patch 11.06, expected to go live on Tuesday, September 16th.