Riot Announced the First New Rifle in Valorant Since Launch and Confirmed It Will Not Be Used at the World Final
The Warden arrives on the twenty second of September alongside a replacement for agent gear progression and a two against two roguelike mode.
Riot Games announced the Warden on 14 September 2026, the first new main rifle added to Valorant since the game launched, arriving in patch 13.06 on 22 September.
The Warden costs 2,900 credits and joins the Vandal and the Phantom as the game's third main rifle. It deals 200 damage to the head, 50 to the body and 42 to the legs, has medium wall penetration, an eighteen-round magazine and 36 rounds in reserve, and a fire rate of 6.5. Its first-shot spread is 0.15 from the hip and 0.04 when aiming, tighter than either existing rifle, and it carries a built-in two times scope.
Riot said the design goal was to provide another option for holding longer angles without committing to a sniper rifle. The weapon lands two days before Valorant Champions begins in Shanghai on 24 September, and the company has confirmed it will not be available at that tournament.
The same patch replaces Agent Gear progression with a system called Agent Mastery, adding customisable agent identity cards with backgrounds, poses, frames, quotes and performance trackers covering kills, hours played and wins. It runs two tracks, a permanent lifetime mastery and act levels that reset each act, and all previously unlocked agent gear rewards carry over. From 2027 a ranked reward called Competitive Flex will evolve across the year.
A mode called Gauntlet: Glitched also arrives, putting eight two-player teams through successive two against two duels with roguelike progression, in which players control a hybrid robot that strips and combines abilities from other agents.