Valorant Season 2026 Act 4 is here, and it has introduced a plethora of fresh content to the shooter, including the new map Summit, a new Battle Pass, a host of new cosmetics, and much more.
One of the biggest highlights of the latest Valorant update is the newly introduced Retake game mode. Seemingly drawing inspiration from the identically named mode in CS2, the Retake game mode in Valorant delivers high-stakes 3v3 action that drops players straight into the heart of the fight.
Having already covered the Retake game mode in depth, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know about how to play Retake in Valorant.
How to Play Retake in Valorant
Playing the Retake game mode in Valorant is extremely easy and takes no more than a few seconds.
To hop on Retake in Valorant, simply follow these steps:
Launch Valorant
From the main menu, hit ‘Play’
Click on ‘Queue’ on the left-hand side of your screen
Select the Retake game mode
Hit ‘Start’
Now all you need to do is wait for a match to pop up, and then you’re in!
That’s everything you need to know about how to play the Retake game mode in Valorant.
Rockstar Games has confirmed the preload date for GTA 6. Players who pre-order the game will be able to start downloading it on November 12, 2026, a full week before launch.
GTA 6 releases on November 19, 2026, for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The preload window gives players time to install the game in advance so they can jump in the moment it unlocks at midnight on launch day.
When Do GTA 6 Preloads Start
Rockstar posted the news on its official website, the same post that announced GTA 6 pre-orders going live on June 25. Pre-orders open at midnight local time. The post confirms preloading starts on November 12.
Pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto VI begin at midnight local time on June 25.
This covers both digital and physical copies. Digital pre-orders through the PlayStation Store or Microsoft Store can preload from that date. Physical copies are also available from November 12, but the box won’t have a disc. It will have a download code instead, and that code unlocks the same preload process as a digital order.
Rockstar hasn’t revealed the file size yet. Worth clearing some space on your console before November 12, just in case.
Why Rockstar Is Opening Preloads So Early
Giving players a full week to download a game before launch isn’t new in gaming. But it solves a real problem here. Millions of people are expected to install GTA 6 at once. Spreading that out over seven days keeps download traffic from piling up on launch day.
There’s another reason for the early window. The files install completely in advance, but the game itself stays locked until launch. Nobody can jump in early, no matter how fast their internet is.
Rockstar Games has confirmed how much Grand Theft Auto 6 will cost at launch. The studio settled the question just hours before pre-orders open on June 25.
Fans had spent years bracing for a $100 base game. That didn’t happen. The standard edition lands at $80, below the dreaded triple-digit mark.
Geoff Keighley, host of The Game Awards, shared the figures on social media on June 24, confirming $80 for the standard edition and $100 for the Ultimate Edition.
GTA 6 still costs more than the traditional $70 AAA price point, but it stops short of the $100 line some had expected from a game this size.
What comes with the GTA 6 Ultimate Edition
The Ultimate Edition costs $20 more than standard. For that, you get an exclusive batch of vehicles, weapons, outfits, and story-linked content for playable characters Jason and Lucia. None of it shows up at once. It unlocks gradually as you move through the campaign.
Here’s what’s in it:
A Vapid Dominator Buggy, plus a dedicated garage in Watson Bay with a weapon locker
A 1995-style Grotti Cheetah sports car
Extra vehicles for Jason’s safehouse: a motorcycle, a kayak, and a modified pickup truck
Two vehicle customization shops, one in Vice City and one at Lake Leonida
A car restoration questline with four Ultimate Edition-only vehicles
A boat docked at Washington Beach
Matching revolvers for Jason and Lucia, plus personalized weapon skins
A gang-run store you can raid in Southside Vice City
Vice City-themed outfits, tattoos, and hairstyles for both leads
Two exclusive clothing and grooming locations
More than 50 tattoo designs from the art collective FAILE
If you’d rather not pay $100 upfront, you don’t have to commit now. Rockstar will sell a separate Ultimate Edition Upgrade later, so Standard Edition owners can add the premium content whenever they want.
Pre-order bonus
Every pre-order, no matter which edition you choose, comes with the Vintage Vice City Pack for free. It leans into the look of the original Vice City: a 1955-style Vapid Stanier sedan, a garage near Ocean Beach with a weapon locker, matching outfits and hairstyles for Jason and Lucia, and a weapon skin based on Tommy Vercetti’s tropical shirt.
Rockstar spent June 24 answering the questions everyone had been shouting for two years. November 19. Seventy-nine ninety-nine, or ninety-nine ninety-nine for the Ultimate Edition. Pre-orders at midnight on June 25. Physical copies are a download code in a box, which is its own small indignity.
The sentence that actually mattered was one nobody was looking for. Take-Two’s press release described Grand Theft Auto VI as a game that “features a single-player experience.” Geoff Keighley clocked it within the hour: “This seems to suggest online will not be part of the initial launch.”
GTA 6 Ships Without GTA Online. Is That a Problem?
Historically, no. GTA V arrived in September 2013 and GTA Online turned up two weeks later. Red Dead Redemption 2 followed the same pattern. Rockstar has never shipped an online mode in the box, and treating that as a betrayal requires forgetting how the last thirteen years worked.
What has changed is the packaging, and the packaging is where the story is.
Pre-order GTA 6 digitally and you get a free month of GTA+, which applies to the current GTA Online, not to anything inside GTA 6. OThe Xbox install listing breaks the campaign out as its own component, leaving a slot where something else would sit. A UK employment tribunal put internal playtests requiring 32 players into the public record. Rockstar insider Tez2 claims online will be sold separately while story mode ships in the full package.
Read those four facts together and the picture is not a company that forgot to build multiplayer. It is a company that has stopped thinking of online as a mode and started thinking of it as a product with its own price tag.
Take-Two booked $6.72 billion in net bookings for fiscal 2026, up 19 percent, with GTA Online contributing heavily to that. A decade of that revenue arrived attached to a $60 game nobody had to buy twice. Decoupling online from the campaign lets Rockstar charge for it directly, and $80 for a story you finish in sixty hours starts to look less like a premium and more like the entry fee.
For players who wanted Jason and Lucia, November 19 delivers exactly what was promised. For everyone who has spent ten years treating Los Santos as somewhere they live rather than something they finished, the real announcement has not happened yet. It arrives the day Rockstar puts a number on it.
Valve has officially launched the Steam Machine at £879 in the UK and $1,049 in the US. This makes it one of the most anticipated yet priciest gaming hardware reveals of 2026. The company acknowledged the price is significantly higher than originally planned, blaming a brutal wave of rising component costs that made its earlier pricing goals “no longer viable.”
What Does the Steam Machine Cost?
The Steam Machine is available in four configurations, giving buyers different options based on their storage needs.
Model
GBP
USD
EUR
Steam Machine 512GB
£879
$1,049
€1,039
Steam Machine 512GB + Controller
£938
$1,128
€1,108
Steam Machine 2TB
£1,149
$1,349
€1,359
Steam Machine 2TB + Controller
£1,208
$1,428
€1,428
Controllers are sold separately by default, so buyers who want Valve’s new Steam Controller need to opt into the bundle or purchase it independently. The first wave begins shipping on June 29, 2026, and buyers must register for a reservation lottery to secure one.
Why Is It So Expensive?
Valve’s original internal target for the Steam Machine was approximately $749. However, the final price ended up around 33% higher due to factors entirely outside its control. In its launch blog post, Valve stated clearly: “our original goal for the price of Steam Machine is no longer viable. So the prices we’re sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing, or, more accurately, it reflects the price of the components as we’ve secured them over the past 6 months.”
The primary culprit is the ongoing industry-wide RAM and NAND storage shortage. This has driven memory prices to record highs in 2026. Valve described its RAM procurement negotiations as brutal, noting that suppliers are essentially offering take-it-or-leave-it pricing with little room to negotiate. This is not a Valve-specific problem. The broader PC industry has seen component costs surge considerably, with some estimates suggesting RAM alone could add 20% or more to the cost of building a PC.
Crucially, Valve has also chosen not to subsidize the hardware the way Sony or Microsoft traditionally do with PlayStation and Xbox. Rather than absorbing losses on each unit sold and recouping them through game sales or subscriptions, Valve believes selling hardware at cost is more consistent with the open nature of PC gaming. This decision, while philosophically consistent with Valve’s platform philosophy, means the full weight of component cost increases falls directly on the consumer’s price tag.
This is actually the second major Valve hardware price shock of 2026. Earlier in May, the company hiked Steam Deck prices by more than 40%, with the 512GB OLED model jumping from £479 to £649, citing the same escalating memory and storage costs.
Hardware Specs and Performance
Despite the steep price, the Steam Machine is genuinely powerful hardware. It is built around a semi-custom AMD platform combining a Zen 4 CPU and an RDNA 3 GPU, targeting native 4K gaming at 60 FPS with FSR upscaling support.
Component
Specification
CPU
Semi-custom AMD Zen 4, 6-core/12-thread, up to 4.86GHz
GPU
Semi-custom AMD RDNA 3, 28 compute units, 2.45GHz max clock
Valve claims the Steam Machine delivers roughly six times the performance of a Steam Deck. This makes it capable of handling demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and other AAA games at high settings. The compact cube form factor is designed to sit comfortably in a living room setup next to a TV, running quietly despite its power output of up to 110W TDP on the GPU alone.
How It Compares to Consoles
At £879, the Steam Machine enters a market where the PlayStation 5 base model typically retails for around £449 to £499. This makes Valve’s device nearly twice the price of Sony’s console. However, the Steam Machine is fundamentally a full PC running SteamOS This gives buyers access to their entire existing Steam library, desktop mode, third-party apps, and the flexibility to connect any PC peripheral. It is not locked to a walled garden ecosystem, which is a meaningful distinction for players already invested in Steam’s catalogue.
The comparison to a similarly specced custom PC build is also relevant. Given current memory and GPU prices, assembling a comparable system yourself would likely cost a similar amount or more when you factor in a licensed OS, case, and cooling. This positions the Steam Machine less as a console competitor and more as a convenient, optimized living room PC at a price that reflects current hardware realities.techspot
Should You Reserve One?
Valve has opened a reservation lottery system rather than a traditional storefront purchase, reflecting limited initial supply. Given that the Steam Deck’s price hike earlier this year was permanent and tied to ongoing component costs, the £879 starting price for the 512GB Steam Machine is unlikely to drop in the near future.
For players who already have a large Steam library, value access to full PC capabilities on a big screen, and want a compact all-in-one solution, the Steam Machine makes a compelling case despite its premium price. For casual gamers or those newer to Steam, the PS5 or Xbox Series X remain significantly cheaper entry points into current-gen gaming.
After years of speculation that ran as high as $100, Rockstar Games confirmed on June 24 that Grand Theft Auto VI will sell for $79.99. The Ultimate Edition lands at $99.99. Pre-orders open at midnight local time on June 25, hours after the announcement, which tells you Rockstar wanted exactly zero days of discourse before the checkout buttons went live.
GTA 6 Price Confirmed at $80 Standard and $100 Ultimate
Both editions cover the November 19 launch on PlayStation 5, PS5 Pro, and Xbox Series X and S. Anyone buying before November 20 gets the Vintage Vice City Pack, and digital pre-orders include a month of GTA+. Physical copies arrive November 12 with a download code rather than a disc, matching digital preload.
The Ultimate Edition is where Rockstar has done its real work. It bundles premium vehicles, a matching pair of revolvers, and access to exclusive in-game stores including a car mod shop, a tattoo parlor, a hair salon, and a clothing outlet. Locking storefronts behind a $20 upgrade is not a bonus skin. It is a design decision, and it is the part fans will be arguing about all week.
The wider story is the ceiling. GTA 6 becomes only the second major title to launch a standard edition at $80, following Nintendo’s Mario Kart World. Microsoft tried the same jump with The Outer Worlds 2 and reversed course after backlash. Rockstar has no such pressure, because nothing in November competes with it.
Take-Two chief Strauss Zelnick has repeatedly framed the company’s approach as charging “way way way less of the value” it delivers. Eighty dollars is that philosophy meeting a game with roughly a decade of development behind it.
Also buried in the press release: Rockstar describes GTA 6 as a single-player experience. No new GTA Online at launch, mirroring what happened with GTA 5 in 2013.
Every publisher watching pre-order numbers tonight is doing the same math. If $80 does not dent GTA 6, $80 becomes the floor.
Valve has officially revealed that the ongoing Counter-Strike 2 Premier Season 4 is set to bring down the curtain on July 6 and will bring important changes to the Active Duty map pool. The start of Season 5 marks the return of Cache, one of the most loved maps from CS:GO, as we continue our journey into the second half of the esports season.
Cache Returns in CS2 Season 5
The highlight of the update will easily be the reintroduction of Cache in Premier Season 5. Cache brings the rich history of Counter-Strike, and its freshly minted overhaul has generated largely positive reactions from the community since its release. With Overpass being a favourite for many teams at this point, Cache will throw a spanner into the works for the coming half of the competitive season.
Season Four of Premier ends on July 6th.
You must have 25 Season Four Premier wins and a visible CSR when the Season concludes to earn your Premier Season Four medal.
Cache is popular not only for its aesthetics, but also for its balanced nature, which allows teams to turn the tables at any point, and due to its open spaces, AWPers find it to their liking as much as riflers, making it a very friendly map to play in.
What This Means for Competitive Players
Players who are still grinding for Season 4 are handed a deadline, and rewards are waiting for them should they secure 25 wins by July 6. With Valve committed to shaking up the map pool, the competitive landscape remains fresh, and we get to see new teams, new strategies, and teams grinding to get ahead with the metas in Cache.
It goes without saying that players are calling for some of the older maps like Mirage and Inferno to be taken out of the pool, but the competitive scene’s stability relies on the maps that lay the foundation of the veto system. While Overpass has proven to be a popular choice among players and teams, we have yet to see how Cache fits into the competitive space. While it was once a very popular choice, finding its place in every veto, it will be interesting to see its modern iteration get reinvented by players and teams.
With Valorant Season 2026 Act 4 fast approaching, the competitive meta of the shooter is certain to see a drastic shift as Riot Games has revealed some crucial Agent changes coming to the game with the upcoming patch.
Over the past few months, we have been seeing Valorant’s meta growing increasingly stale, with certain Agents in each role dominating the pick rates while some remained nearly untouched. The Valorant 13.0 Agent changes aim to shake things up by addressing these imbalances, delivering some much-needed buffs to several underutilized Agents and shifting the game towards more ability usage rather than relying solely on raw gunplay.
Valorant Patch 13.0 Agent Changes
While Duelists and Controllers remain largely untouched in the Valorant 13.0 update, Sentinels and Initiators have received buffs across the board, with the former category receiving more significant buffs overall.
Agents like Killjoy and Veto will see significant power spikes to their kit, while others like Cypher and Sage receive minor improvements.
A number of Initiators will have their signature ability cooldowns reduced by ten seconds, while Gekko’s ability cooldowns after reclaiming buddies will be reduced by five seconds.
Valorant 13.0 Update: All Agent Changes Listed
Here’s a list of all the Agent changes that are coming to Valorant with the Season 2026 Act 4 update, as confirmed by the devs:
Cypher
Trapwire
Reduced windup from .9s to .7s.
Killjoy
Turret
Rate of fire increased by 50%
Nanoswarm
Duration increased from 4s to 5s.
Alarmbot
Movement speed increased by 50%.
Veto
Interceptor
Reclaim cooldown reduced from 30s to 20s.
Crosscut
Usable area increased from 24m to 30m.
Arming time after placing was reduced from 1.5s to .75s.
Sage
Healing Orb
Self Heal-Over-Time has increased from 50 to 100.
Deadlock
GravNet
Cooldown reduced from 60s to 50s
Initiator Cooldowns
The signature ability cooldown of Sova, Fade, Skye, Breach, KAY/0 have been reduced from 60s to 50s.
Gekko’s ability cooldowns after reclaiming his buddies has been reduced from 20s to 15s.
While the gameplay and thematic elements of Omen’s Shrouded Step generally align with our design intention, cases where Omen teleports past or behind enemies during chaotic VALORANT rounds undetected because they simply could not parse the audio violates our gameplay clarity standards. This change is small, but should make Omen’s more obvious casts of this ability easier to hear.
Omen
Shrouded Step
We’ve updated enemy Omen Shrouded Step audio with the goal of improving clarity in situations where you are within range of the ability but are unable to hear it.
Alongside the aforementioned Agent changes, the Valorant 13.0 update will also kick off the new Act, bringing with it the new map Summit, the Retake game mode, lots of new cosmetics, and more.
Following the conclusion of the Intel Extreme Cologne Major 2026, Valve has silently introduced a significant update to Counter-Strike 2’s trading system, focusing on changing how the seven-day trade lock applies to items purchased via the Steam Community Market.
With nothing mentioned in the patch notes, fans discovered this minor change in the trading system. Up until this change, all CS2 items purchased from the Steam Community Market became tradable at the same fixed time each day, roughly 3 PM UTC+8. The key drawback of this system was how it impacted price swings across the market, especially when skins and stickers were unlocked simultaneously, creating a surge in pressure to sell.
Valve has updated the Steam trade lock.
Now, every CS2 item becomes tradable exactly 7 days after being purchased on the Steam Market 👀
With the introduction of the recent update in the Trading system, Valve has altered the cooldown period. Moving away from the traditional model, the common unlock window will be replaced with a new system that will see items purchased from the Steam market become tradable exactly seven days (168 hours) after they enter a player’s inventory. The update effectively introduces a “first bought, first unlocked” model, eliminating the synchronised daily unlock like other prominent 3rd party trading platforms.
Although Valve has not announced this change via an official patch note, this is already in effect in the trade market. This may seem like a superficial change, but moving away from Counter-Strike 2’s marketplace mechanics to make a quality-of-life improvement for players speaks to Valve’s commitment to improving other areas of the game.
Counter-Strike’s marketplace plays a crucial role in developing the game’s ecosystem, and any step in making the market more stable speaks to how Valve is keen on building these facets. With time, we shall realise what differences these macro changes make for the grand scheme of things, but as of now, this is a step in the right direction.
Now that fans have had enough time to check out Summit, Riot Games has officially shed light on the detailed patch notes for the Valorant 13.0 update, and there’s a whole lot to uncover.
The Valorant Season 2026 Act 4 update brings with it a ton of exciting new changes to the competitive shooter. From entirely new content like Summit and the Retake game mode to gameplay changes including Sentinel buffs and Bandit improvements, Valorant 13.0 is shaping up to be one of the game’s most substantial updates in recent memory.
In this article, we’ll take a look at everything new that the Valorant V26Act4 update has in store for its players.
With that being said, let’s take a look at the detailed patch notes of the Valorant 13.0 update:
ALL PLATFORMS
AGENTS UPDATES
Sentinels serve an important role in the VALORANT tactical loop by punishing attackers who ignore macro strategy and instead opt for repeated, low information 5-player site hits. We believe VALORANT is best when strategy is mixed. These changes are aimed at improving overall Sentinel power so they can better serve their purpose in keeping disrespectful attackers honest, as well as improve their kill potential when anchoring sites alone.
Cypher
Trapwire
Reduced windup from .9s to .7s.
Killjoy
Turret
Rate of fire increased by 50%
Nanoswarm
Duration increased from 4s to 5s.
Alarmbot
Movement speed increased by 50%.
Veto
Interceptor
Reclaim cooldown reduced from 30s to 20s.
Crosscut
Usable area increased from 24m to 30m.
Arming time after placing was reduced from 1.5s to .75s.
Sage
Healing Orb
Self Heal-Over-Time has increased from 50 to 100.
Deadlock
GravNet
Cooldown reduced from 60s to 50s.
While we’ve appreciated that gunplay is playing a bigger role in VALORANT rounds since Patch 11.08, we feel there is room to give Initiators more strategic agency by playing around their cooldowns in late-round scenarios. These changes aim to strike a balance between the old cooldowns and the changes from Patch 11.08 late last year.
Initiator Cooldowns
The signature ability cooldown of Sova, Fade, Skye, Breach, KAY/0 have been reduced from 60s to 50s.
Gekko’s ability cooldowns after reclaiming his buddies has been reduced from 20s to 15s.
While the gameplay and thematic elements of Omen’s Shrouded Step generally align with our design intention, cases where Omen teleports past or behind enemies during chaotic VALORANT rounds undetected because they simply could not parse the audio violates our gameplay clarity standards. This change is small, but should make Omen’s more obvious casts of this ability easier to hear.
Omen
Shrouded Step
We’ve updated enemy Omen Shrouded Step audio with the goal of improving clarity in situations where you are within range of the ability but are unable to hear it.
Agent VO Updates
We’re making small updates to various Agents voice lines and critical gameplay audio tells in order to reduce audio clutter and standardize Agent ability VO across our roster.
New Sage and Viper voice lines interactions for the new map, Summit.
New conversation lines between Miks & Gekko, and Jett & Phoenix.
We’re also using this opportunity to remove a handful of lines that no longer meet our quality standards as they relate to agent behavior. The affected Agents are Killjoy, Jett, Reyna, Skye, Astra, Clove, Chamber, Neon, Deadlock, Vyse, Breach, Viper, Omen, Sova, Yoru, Fade, Iso, Tejo and Harbor.
CLIENT UPDATES
Inbox is now live in the VALORANT client, giving you one place to revisit curated, non-urgent notifications. You can see which messages are new or read, delete individual items to keep things tidy, and expect more notifications over time as we continue expanding Inbox.
At launch, the Inbox includes the following message types:
Gifting updates, so you’ll know when a gift you sent was accepted or rejected.
Premier updates for promotion, being up for promotion, and qualifying for playoffs.
RR refund notifications.
Reporter feedback notifications, including “thank you for the report” messages.
And Act Introduction messages, so you can revisit the current Act’s high-level info in-client.
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
RR/MMR Adjustments
Now that the MMR changes we made earlier this year have had some time to settle, we’re adjusting our Ranked Rating (RR) calculations so you feel a little less stuck if you are consistently winning matches.
Let us know if the climb is feeling better, especially for our Immortal+ players!
MAP UPDATES
NEW MAP: SUMMIT
A 5v5 Spike mode map set in a Radiant training academy nestled in the mountains of China. Battle through training halls and meditation gardens where droppable walls reshape the battlefield mid-round.
Summit features three lanes and two sites.
Summit Launch Event
Summit will be available to play in Competitive queue starting today.
RR losses on Summit will be 50% reduced for the first two weeks. You will still receive 100% of the RR for any wins on Summit.
Map Pool Updates
SUMMIT and SUNSET are IN the COMPETITIVE and DEATHMATCH queues.
FRACTURE and PEARL are OUT of the COMPETITIVE and DEATHMATCH queues.
MODES UPDATES
New Limited Time Mode
Introducing RETAKE, a fast 3v3 Spike mode built around constant post-plant action. The Spike is already planted when the round begins; one team holds, the other coordinates the retake under a ticking timer. Hold the site, push the retake, and race to 5 rounds.
Mode Details
Round Structure
3v3 on single sites
Sides swap every round. Planters defend the planted Spike, Retakers push to defuse
Rounds end on team elimination, defuse, or Spike detonation
First team to 5 rounds wins
Pre-Planted Spike
Auto-plants a few seconds into each round at a visible location on site
Plant positions are randomized from a curated pool of spots per site
Loadouts
No economy. Pick from two cards each round: weapons and armor, and ability charges
Each card offers two randomized options that escalate round over round
Maps
Available at launch: sites from Ascent, Bind, Haven, Summit, and Sunset
Each match is played on a single site selected at random
NEW MAP QUEUE: SUMMIT
Summit Only queue will be available for 7 days.
Summit Only games will use the Swiftplay mode format.
WEAPONS UPDATES
Now that the Bandit has been out for a few months, we’re fairly happy with where it’s landed, but we see an opportunity to make the gun more reliable while still maintaining its position as a precision weapon to master. We want to keep the Bandit’s pricing and mechanical mastery in check relative to the Ghost and Sheriff and we think these changes put it in a more competitive spot.
Bandit Tuning
Recovery from .45 >>> .4
Tap efficiency from 3 >>> 4
Pitch recoil at max down from 4 >>> 3
BUG FIXES
General
Fixed a bug where two different VOs could play when a player wins the round and game.
Fixed a bug where if a player was spectating an ally who got an Ace or Clutch in the previous round, the pre-round commend VO could become directional for the spectator.
Fixed a bug where the bottom HUD color for Signature and Ultimate abilities would be an incorrect color after Side Swap or Overtime.
Agents
Harbor
Fixed a bug where Harbor’s Reckoning debuff could linger briefly after the ability’s VFX disappeared.
Killjoy
Fixed a bug where Killjoy’s Nanoswarm cast VO line would not play.
Viper
Fixed a bug where Viper could crouch outside of Viper’s Pit on Abyss without losing Smoke Integrity.
Fixed a bug where Viper’s Pit could incorrectly spread through certain placements of Sage’s Barrier Orb and Vyse’s Shear, creating a divider inside the pit.
Fixed a bug where Viper’s Pit VFX could fail to appear in Replays after scrubbing the timeline and switching to Free Cam.
Fixed a bug where Viper’s Pit smoke could appear with artifacts or form incorrectly on Ascent, Abyss, Haven, Icebox, and Split.
KNOWN ISSUES
General
In certain scenarios, it’s possible that players will be notified twice about RR refunds via Inbox and the Modal popup. Please note that this does not mean you are getting a double refund.
PC ONLY
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
We’ve made changes to our matchmaking to ensure the average rank of each team is within 1 sub-tier.
Basically, if your team’s average rank is Gold 2, the other team’s average rank will also be within Gold more often.
PREMIER UPDATES
Welcome to Stage V26A4! Matches start on July 1.
Teams with a Premier Score of at least 600 qualify for Playoffs on August 16.
Make sure to check the schedule in client for match start times for your zone!
For Contender and Invite Division teams:
Qualification is still based on your placement – check out the standings page for more info.
Playoffs will be played across two days! The first round of Playoffs will be on August 15. Teams that advance from the first round return on August 16 for the finals.
