At the beginning of the 2025 season of VALORANT, Riot finally shared updates on the progress of the VALORANT Replay System. Let’s break it down and explore what is going on!
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What is Replay System?
Replay System is a recording of a match or race between competitors in a video game, which can later be watched by other players. And would allow players to improve their skills by reviewing past decisions and analyzing enemy strategies. Players have been asking for a Valorant replay system since the game launched. And the many players hopes that Valorant's replay system will match the quality of the CS2 demo.
How Lag Compensation Works in Valorant
In Valorant, the game server is authoritative—it’s the final arbiter of everything that happens in the game. Here’s how it works:
- The server receives inputs from players’ clients.
- It updates its record of the game.
- It sends the updated game state back to the players.
This process happens 128 times per second (once per server tick). However, sending information between your client and the server over the internet takes time. As a result, the view you see during gameplay is always slightly behind the server’s actual state.
To make shooting feel smooth and responsive, the server uses lag compensation. When it processes your shot, it rewinds time to match what you saw on your screen and determines if your shot hit. Without this, you’d need to predict and lead your shots, which would make the game feel clunky.
The Valorant Replay Problem
Replays are created by having the game server continuously record its own perspective of the match. This approach ensures accuracy and avoids any impact on your client’s performance. However, the server’s perspective doesn’t always match what you saw during gameplay because of lag compensation.
This can result in inaccuracies in replays. For example:
- At a low ping (15ms), the difference between your client’s view and the server’s recording is barely noticeable.
- At a higher ping (120ms), the discrepancies become much more apparent. You might clearly hit a shot in your client, but in the replay, it could appear as if you missed.
Visualizing the Difference
To better illustrate this, we created an overlay comparing your client’s view and the server’s perspective in a replay:
- The ghost version represents what you saw on your client when you took the shot.
- The solid version shows what the server recorded and what appears in the replay.
When pings are high, the replay might show your aim trailing behind the target, even if your shot landed in the game. This discrepancy happens because of the time it takes for your input to reach the server and for the server to process it.
Replay System Icons
Valorant Replay System icons were added to the game file with Patch 10.02.
When Will Valorant Replays be Released?
Valorant is actively discussing how to best handle these discrepancies. Should replays show the client’s perspective, the server’s perspective, or perhaps both? Each option has its pros and cons, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
For now, they are evaluating the best way to represent these moments in replays without compromising accuracy or clarity. So there is no confirmed release date yet, but based on the interview, the Valorant Replay System is highly likely to enter testing in 2025.
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