Valorant had brakes the record

Valorant had a record-breaking day on Twitch

 Riot’s latest game had a record-breaking day on Twitch — despite the fact that it isn’t even out yet. Yesterday the studio’s new shooter Valorant launch in a limited closed beta, and viewers flocked to watch streams of the game. According to Twitch, the game broke the “single-day hours watched record in a single game category” with 34 million hours watched. Meanwhile, the game hit a peak concurrent viewer total of 1.7 million, which is second only to the 2019 League of Legends World Championship.

One of the main driving factors behind Valorant’s huge day is the way the closed beta works. In order to get a key to play, viewers had to watch specific streams on Twitch. Riot recruited many of the biggest shooter players on the platform, including the likes of Jaryd “summit1g” Lazar, whose stream topped more than 200,000 viewers at one point. Other big-name streamers included Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar, Félix “xQc” Lengyel, Imane “Pokimane” Anys, and Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm.

Valorant — which blends elements of Overwatch and Counter-Strike — is slated to launch in full later this summer on PC. It’s Riot’s first major PC release following a decade focused on the continuously popular strategy game League of Legends.