VALORANT Mobile first national series unveiled with $418,000 prize pool

VALORANT Mobile is set to get a national competition in China with a prize pool of $418,000 (~£309,000) on the line.

The tournament will offer four different pathways to qualify for the in-person finals, including national, colleges, streaming platforms, and cooperation.

This VALORANT Mobile event will be a part of a larger national-level competition across PC and mobile, called Alpha Split, with CN¥3m (~£309,000) in prize pool up for grabs on each platform.

The national, colleges, and cooperation qualifiers for the event will take palce from September to November as teams vie for a shot at the national finals.

Separate qualifiers will also be broadcasted on on the major streaming platforms of the country, namely Bilibili, TikTok, Huya Live, Douyu, and Kuaishou. These will run back-to-back from August 25th to September 14th, according the announcement.

VALORANT Mobile will also receive an esports centre in the game that will allow all players to easily participate in the tournament. Lastly, the cooperation track will be the OnePlus VALORANT Mobile tournament, announced earlier this year.

The winner of each of the four tracks will qualify for the National Finals in December, which will take place at the Aranya Grand Masters, an international skateboarding competition. The PC edition of the national competition follows a similar format as well and will be held in the same venue.

With this national-level tournament arriving just weeks after the game’s official release in China, Riot Games is showing its commitment to developing an esports scene for the mobile title in one of the biggest markets for the platform globally.

Riot has also confirmed that it plans to commit 1.5bn RMB (~£150m) to the game over the next three years to grow VALORANT Mobile esports.

The game is already off to a rolling start in China, as it accumulated more than $1m (~£780,000) revenue from in-app purchases on iOS devices on its launch day.