Biggest news Riot Games has dropped-the huge Unreal Engine 5 upgrade for VALORANT is finally becoming real. Patch 11.02 starts rolling out today, but regional timings have gone for a toss, with everybody scrambling to figure out exactly when they can jump in.
The original VALORANT Leaks tweet sets it straight that the update is first to hit the NA, LATAM, and BR regions. But a bummer when you think about it, forcing everyone else to suffer with anticipation. The replies section also took a dark turn, becoming the global timezone calculator, with Grok working overtime to figure out rollouts for every nook and cranny of this planet.
Let’s just lay it out here before your heads explode:
Today would mean the 29th for North America, 6.00 AM PT. That would be 9.00 AM ET for the East Coast, give or take a few maintenance minutes, which is going to be the longest staring competition onto your desktop for all of you; LATAM follows along the same pattern. Chile gets it at 9:00 AM CLT, and Mexico City follows at 7:00 AM CST.
Europe: July 30. France gets UE5 at 5:00 AM CEST and the UK gets it an hour before at 4:00 AM BST. Someone in the replies thought it was today and had their heart broken-mood.
Closing up APAC: Thailand gets it on July 30 around 4-6 AM ICT, and the Philippines get their shot at 5:00-7:00 AM PHT. The Middle East players are still asking for their turn (Riot please).
Performance was becoming the next hot topic in half the thread. One user inquired about FPS impact, finding himself with two remarkably distinct answers: “55-60 if your GPU can handle it,” or “5-10% improvement.” Classic. These optimization worries; well, Khezama joked about needing to buy a new PC just for VALORANT now (same bro, same).
The funniest bit: Some guy complaining about realising that a game uses UE5 “ruins the experience” after playing for 20 hours. Like… what? Meanwhile, competitive players are getting nightmares about whether this could actually change hitboxes or gun mechanics (Riot alleges it’s just a visual update, but nobody buys it).
What is crazy for me is the worldwide nature of this VALORANT community -the replies are in English, Spanish, French, Thai…Grokkie is providing free multilingual customer support. Kudos to the UK guy asking for NYC timings (timezones are hard, okay?).
So, what else does this update hold besides an engine swap? Riot has been quiet on any further detail, so everybody is nervous. The UE5 transition means better lighting, textures, and all that jazz, but the players are worried about one thing: Does it break my skins? We’ll find out soon.
Pro tip: Clear some hard drive space tonight. This ain’t no 200MB patch-I’m telling you, it is going to be gigabytes. And maybe don’t get ready for playing right at launch unless you like looking down at download bars.
What is for sure, though, is that the shooting range is about to look fine. Now, I need to come up with an excuse for my boss about how I’m “sick” in the morning.
