Changing regions may wipe Valorant accounts, including skins

Olivia Richman Published 22/08/2020

The Valorant community is not happy after it became clear that changing regions may completely wipe a player’s account.

A frustrated player took to social media to describe their situation after they lost their rank, paid skins, and everything else on their Valorant account after moving from Australia to Belgium.

A member of Riot Games support had been helping them change their region during the move. The email stated that changing the region is required to allow the game to function properly, but that it would lead to their match history, rank progression, and in-game content to be lost.

Valorant region cahnge

“Before starting the process I didn’t have the information that this would happen, they just told me that I had to wait two weeks in order to change my region,” the Valorant player said.

The Valorant community was relieved to hear that Riot refunded the player’s Valorant Points. But that wasn’t enough to keep them from expressing shock and dismay over Riot’s region change policy. Many players felt it was better to just sell their old account and start a new one when they move since they lose all of their match history and purchases upon changing the region anyway.

Some Valorant players stood up for Riot, stating that players lost skins when they switched regions in order to discourage players from “region hopping” to save a few dollars on skins that are sold cheaper in other regions. Others responded that this was also Riot’s own issue since they are just trying to “squeeze money” from specific countries or regions.

Valorant players debate Riot wiping region swap accounts

A former Riot employee decided to speak up about the situation after one annoyed Valorant player stated that Riot was telling players to “fuck themselves” with the account-wiping policy.

The former employee explained that region-specific runes and account data are “incompatible” and would need to be either manually fixed or run through specific tools to make them compatible in another region.

“I’d guess that the current back end doesn’t actually have transfer functionality, given that you lose everything. They’re probably just deleting or deactivating the existing account, and tying a new, blank one to the Riot account in the correct region, then manually adding the VP,” the former Riot employee speculated.

Another player responded that even if this was true, it was still “archaic” and made for a “shitty experience.”

Valorant developers and current Riot employees have yet to respond to the post, which is continuing to gain traction on Reddit. As more Valorant players express concern over how Riot deals with changing regions, Valorant’s development team might feel the need to address the issue with players in the community.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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