The patch notes for Valorant update 8.04 have been released but, despite what many fans were hoping for, there is no sign of a new agent or big balance changes. Instead, big updates are coming to Premier for the start of a new stage.
With the timing seemingly right for the start of a new Act, many Valorant fans were hoping to find out what the next agent, currently known as Agent 25, will be able to do. However, just before the patch notes were released the Valorant team announced that the next agent will not be revealed until the final match of the upcoming Valorant Masters Madrid tournament, which is due to kick off on March 14 2024. The final isn’t until March 24, so there is still a long way to go before we get to find out who the next Valorant agent is.
However, the patch notes do bring some welcome changes to Premier, the in-game tournament mode inside Valorant where you can join a team and compete against other full teams to become champions. It’s a mode that has proven very popular since its introduction and the new season kicking off brings with it some welcome quality-of-life improvements.
Now you can make a team and start playing in Premier at any time, instead of having to form a team and be prepared in advance of it kicking off, and your promotion division will be shown as soon as the team is formed or the roster changes before locking in when you play the first game.
Weekly matches now have some much-needed replay protection, so you won’t be playing against the same team twice unless there are basically no other teams available to play against. But you can now only play two matches per week, so you can no longer jump between rosters to only play Premier.
All of these tweaks should improve Premier, which is already one of the highlights of Valorant and solves the issue of average players not being able to play in a similar format to what the pros do.
Elsewhere in the 8.04 patch notes the Esports Hub in the game is being updated with all the info you will need for the upcoming Valorant Masters Madrid tournament. The eight best teams from around the world will compete for the first major title of the year and some all-important VCT points that could see them qualify for the Valorant Champions Seoul tournament later this year.
Rounding out the patch are a few bug fixes, including the annoying bug where KAY/O’s E ability would sometimes give you incorrect information. However, the devs have warned that it could still pop up as an issue so if you see it happen they have asked you to report it. There are also fixes for some issues with Sage’s ult and barrier orb, and improvements to abilities that could extend past the edge of the map to make it less of an issue.
