Dev reveals if Valorant on console will have gyro aim

Valorant’s console ports will not have gyro aim, and fans are wondering why the awesome feature will go unsupported for some.

Although E3 is long gone, its spirit lives on in June with an avalanche of announcements and trailers. One of the most exciting tidbits from Riot Games comes from Valorant finally making its way to consoles.  Valorant will launch on PS5 as well as Xbox Series X and S soon, and fans are pumped to play on different platforms. The game will initially launch in closed beta on June 14, 2024, likely to work out the kinks of moving to another console. After all, this is the first time a mainline Riot Games release launched for consoles. The console ports will feature everything the PC version has, from iconic maps to the latest agents.

However, FPS fans soon found out Valorant will not support gyro aim on consoles, and technological limitations on controllers are to blame.

Why does Valorant not have gyro aim on consoles?

Valorant will not have gyro aim on consoles because Xbox controllers don’t natively support the feature, which is why PlayStation players will have to do without.

Game development is an arduous process on the best of days, and a lot more work goes into even seemingly simple ports. After all, it’s an entirely new system with its own control scheme and online infrastructure.  A Valorant player on social media asked Valorant product manager Coleman “Altombre” Palm why gyro aim will go unsupported on consoles.

“Not a blind spot for us (for what it’s worth), but it’s not supported on Xbox controllers natively. If we leaned super hard into gyro being “the way to play” on console we’d be heavily favoring PS5>Xbox, which we don’t want to do,” said Palm.

The transparent answer revealed why the requested feature didn’t make it. Xbox’s lack of native support for gyro aim meant PS5 players, who did have gyro aim support, had to go without it. Some fans contested the statement, saying it wasn’t “favoritism” to support gyro aim for consoles with the feature.

Palm agreed with the sentiment but emphasized the standardization of control paradigms first to ensure players on PS5 and Xbox have a good experience. The developers remain open to gyro aim support for PS5 in the future, but Palm makes no promises.