Valorant’s Head of Esports confirms VCT Champions 2025 to take place in October, prolonging the season by two months after an exhausting and tight 2024 season schedule.
Burnout, fatigue-inducing, and lack of progression for the lowest-ranked teams are only some of the concerns Valorant pro players and coaches used to describe the 2024 season. Given the tight seven-tournament season within seven months, many players called for subs in some events due to the mentally and physically challenging season.
Riot Games is finally heeding their pro players’ concerns about next year’s season. Leo Faria, Valorant Head of Esports, announced that the 2025 calendar will conclude with VCT Champions in October, making the season two months longer than in previous iterations.
For comparison, the last three VCT seasons ended no later than September, with 2023 and 2024 ending in August. Most of these tournaments also commenced in February, leaving Valorant’s already jam-packed seasons with little to no rest period for the players.
In the 2024 season, most teams headed for international tournaments had minimal time to prepare for the Masters and even less time to rest and recover for regional competitions.
One of the current season’s most promising players, Team Heretics’ MiniBoo, had to sit out of Masters Shanghai due to “signs of burnout, anxiety, and overall exhaustion.” Masters Madrid winners Sentinels also points at burnout as the reason behind less-than-expected performance in Americas Stage 1.
Beyond mental and physical health, visa issues were another common concern for teams qualified for international seeds. The two-week breaks from one tournament to another left limited time for players to get their visas approved, which happened to American and European teams.
With the extension of the 2025 VCT Season, Valorant fans can only expect better plays and an overall improvement in the Valorant pro scene.
But before we look forward to next year’s season, let’s all brace ourselves first for the second round of regional tournaments on the last week of June. Stage 2 of Valorant regionals will also determine the final roster of teams to face each other on VCT’s biggest stage, Champions.