How to Play Pearl in Valorant

With the release of Valorant’s Episode 5 dropping this week, players have access to a brand-new map in the form of Pearl, alongside new skins and a Battle Pass to grind their way through. In this guide, we’ll run you through everything you need to know on how to play the new map, Pearl, in Valorant, so you can check it out for yourself as soon as possible.

How to Play New Map Pearl in Valorant

Pearl was available in early access over the weekend and only today becomes the public to play in North America. The map is now live along with the start of Episode 5, which also brings a bunch of other new content along with it. Again, though, this is only for those in the U.S. For players in Europe and other regions, it won’t go live until tomorrow.

Regardless of which region you’re a part of, after the update has been downloaded (which will be larger than normal), players will be able to load up the game and play Pearl immediately.

Once you’re in the game, you will see a special “Pearl” game mode. Choose that option and then Start Match as per usual. This mode will only find games of Pearl.

The map will not be available in Competitive queues, typically for the first two weeks — just to iron out bugs. This is entirely normal and has been the case with other new maps that have been added to the game with its ‘Episode’ updates.

After a couple of weeks, Pearl will likely be added to Competitive queues, and we’ll update this post and let you know when this occurs.

For everything else you need to know on Valorant’s Episode 5 update, be sure to check out the links below. If you’ve missed