Valorant: Season Start & End Dates

If you’re someone who is relatively new to Riot’s FPS Valorant, you might find the entire ranked system to be confusing and overwhelming.

Apart from understanding the ranks and tiers themselves, planning your ranked journey requires you to familiarize yourself with the structure of Valorant’s seasons, including when they begin and end.

Valorant Current Season 2026 (V26) Start and End Date

Season 2026 Act 1 started on January 7, 2026 in North and South America, and January 8, 2026 in the rest of the world. Act 1 ended on March 18, 2026. Act 2 started on March 18, 2026 and will end on April 29, 2026, following Riot's usual schedule. The full Season 2026 end date has not yet been announced for the remaining acts.

Major Changes - Act 2

New Agent (Miks): Miks is a new Controller from Croatia built around team support, smokes, healing, and utility coordination. His kit includes Combat Stims for allies, a dual-output device that can either concuss or heal, and smokes placed via a map targeter.

Agent Balance Updates: Yoru was nerfed with Blindside reduced from 2 charges to 1, and Gatecrash's beacon active duration cut from 30 seconds to 15 seconds. Clove also took a hit, with smoke duration while dead cut from 14 seconds to 6 seconds. Skye also received balance adjustments.

Map Pool: Lotus and Fracture are back in the Competitive and Deathmatch queues, while Abyss and Corrode have been removed.

Lotus Changes: As part of Riot's ongoing effort to reduce weapon spam when barriers drop, some walls on the A side of Lotus were changed to clean up attacker entries.

New Limited-Time Mode: Knockout is a fast-paced, round-based elimination mode where every kill resurrects a fallen teammate.

HUD and UI Updates: Assist Banners have been added to the HUD, the Killfeed was updated to more clearly show assists and assisting abilities, and Status Effect Tags were revised for better clarity.

Observer and Replay Improvements: Observers and spectators can now see Ability Map Targeters, and those targeters also show up in replays.

Ranked Adjustments: Ranked Rating thresholds for Immortal 2, Immortal 3, and Radiant were adjusted to bring parity to leaderboard requirements across all regions, without changes to the underlying MMR system.

Major Changes - Act 1

New Weapon (Bandit): A new 600-credit sidearm designed as a headshot machine for eco rounds or aggressive plays.

Breeze Map Rework: Breeze received Valorant's biggest map rework yet, with significant changes across the entire map to reduce angle complexity, tighten open spaces, and improve rotation times for defenders Gfinity Esports. Breeze is back in competitive rotation while Sunset was removed.

Map Pool: The competitive map pool now includes: Abyss, Bind, Breeze, Corrode, Pearl, Haven, and Split.

Agent Changes Breach, Brimstone, Harbor, Tejo, Sage, and Vyse all received updates. Tejo got buffs to his abilities supporting Guided Salvos, while Vyse's Steel Garden got more area to help with her performance.

Matchmaking Improvements: The hidden MMR system was updated to improve match quality and bring more consistent experiences.

New Limited-Time Mode: "All Random, One Site" is a chaotic 5v5 mode where your agent changes every round and you fight for a single site.

Behavior System Updates: Players now see indicators on the Social Panel if they have active penalties or are at risk of future penalties, with stricter enforcement for chat and voice offenses

All Valorant Seasons Start and End Dates 

What are Valorant Episodes?

Episodes are major content updates that extend over a 6-month period, constantly evolving the game with the additions of significant changes to the game’s balance through Acts.

On average, Riot releases one to two Agents per Episode as well as one new map which keeps the game fresh while presenting a new challenge for players.

Apart from serving as a cornerstone in the game’s trajectory with all of the updates, Episodes also heavily impact Valorant’s ranked landscape.

This is because Episodes serve as soft ranked resets, forcing you to play 5 placement games in order to get your rank back on the ladder.

Episodes won’t fully reset your rank (eg. Platinum resetting to Bronze) as your new rank is massively determined by your previous one and your current ranked MMR.

What are Valorant Acts?

Valorant Acts present milestones in Episodes that offer large gameplay updates and introduce content that is meant to keep the game fresh and updated.

They consist of smaller patches, 6 per Season, each releasing within a two-week frame of each other.

Valorant Acts reset your Valorant rank where you have to play 5 placement games to get your rank back, usually landing you within a few tiers of the previous one unless your MMR is very low.

Last but not least, Valorant Acts also introduce fresh content in the form of battle passes that allow players to gain access to unique, limited-time cosmetics.

Even though the free version of the battle pass contains some rewards, the true value lies in the premium pass, as the paid version provides some of the best bang for buck value in Valorant.

Valorant Act rewards

Given that Episodes serve as ranked resets, they also provide you with unlockable ranked rewards that celebrate your ranked success during that Act.

These ranked rewards are distributed in the form of gun buddies whose appearance is based on your peak rank during that Act.

Furthermore, your journey through an Act is also displayed through your profile ranked badge and border, both designed to show off your biggest ranked successes.

This reward system aims to give an incentive to players to take ranked games seriously, as higher ranks get better gun buddies and badges to show off.