Valorant is hottest new competitive shooter around, and for now, it just so happens to be a PC exclusive. But, as you’re likely aware, there are several operating systems that personal computers run on. With that in mind, the next question is probably obvious: Does Valorant have Linux support?
Is Valorant available on Linux?
Sorry, folks: Valorant is not available on Linux. The game has no official Linux support, at least not yet. Even if it’s technically playable on certain open-source operating systems, the current iteration of Valorant’s anti-cheat system is unusable on anything other than Windows 10 PCs.
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If you’re reading this, chances are good that you or someone you know is interested in running Valorant on Linux. Given that compatibility layer software like Wine is typically able to run Windows programs, you may think it’s technically possible to get Valorant running with certain distributions. Unfortunately, Wine is not fully compatible with Riot Vanguard, the game’s (often controversial) anti-cheat system.
Without going into specifics, Riot Vanguard has been designed to run at the ring 0 or kernel level of Windows PCs. It was not designed for any other platform — not macOS nor any operating system used by current-generation video game consoles. So while it may be possible to get the game running, without Vanguard being fully operational, it would never be able to connect to official matchmaking servers. For a competitive online shooter, this fact alone means Valorant is effectively unplayable on Linux.
Is there any way to make Valorant playable on Linux?
Of course, some users are determined enough to try to make Valorant run anyway. Many have turned to Lutris, the open-source gaming platform for Linux machines, in an attempt to get the game running. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t seem to work. Forum posts like this one show that the game’s installation program crashes on a large number of distributions, including Lutris itself, Ubuntu, Manjaro, Linux Mint, and others.
Others have questioned whether or not Valorant could be playable on Linux through streaming services such as GeForce Now. Again, the answer seems to be no. Valorant does not play nice with virtual machines, which all cloud gaming services are based around. And even if it did work, the inherent latency of cloud-based services would put players at a serious disadvantage in online play.
Put simply, Valorant does not work on Linux. The game isn’t supported, Riot Vanguard anti-cheat isn’t supported, and the installer itself tends to crash across most major distributions. If you want to play Valorant properly, you’ll need to install it on a Windows PC.
