In case you missed it, Valorant just got a new game mode called Escalation. It is a 5v5 team deathmatch style mode that encourages you to practice and experience the other guns.

You start Escalation mode with more powerful guns but as you get more kills, your weapons are replaced progressively with more challenging and less lethal ones.

Each match has a randomly-generated set of 12 weapons/abilities which both teams must cycle through. A team must collectively get X number of kills/points in each of the 12 stages before you’re able to progress to the next one.

For those that have not gotten a kill with a weapon will stay on the previous level until they get a kill which will then auto-upgrade the weapon to the next level. This will allows newer players or players that are still improving the chance to have a leg up as far lethality goes.

This, however, changes in the final stage wherein the whole team gets the final weapon/ability as soon as the team gets to Stage 12.

Escalation mode will automatically end in 10 minutes with the team in the lead claiming the victory.

“In designing Escalation, we wanted to create a quick, low-stress Team Deathmatch mode with high uptime that’s fun to play socially with friends. We’re hoping to provide players with an opportunity to practice gunplay across the entire arsenal and experience some abilities in novel ways while providing a shared objective that benefits from some coordination but doesn’t require it for a team to succeed.”

Kyle Leach, Engineer/Designer on Modes

In a previous update, Valorant debuted a new agent, Yoru, to kick off episode 2 act 1.