VALORANT’s Replay System Leaves Pros, Coaches, and Creators Empty-Handed

Since the VALORANT initial launch in 2020, the community and fans have been asking for a VALORANT replay feature again and again, and after a long wait, Riot Games finally announced the VALORANT replay system earlier this year. It was indeed a major feature as other popular shooters, like CS: GO and Overwatch, already had a replay feature, and everyone knew how useful they could be. Replays help casual players learn from their mistakes, provide content creators with tools to create videos, and enable professional teams to study strategies. Let's say if you are a casual player, the VALORANT replay system can help you analyse your mistakes. For a content creator, it can be useful to have tools to create videos without having a headache to record them from third-party software. Probably, the most beneficial were supposed to be esports players and analysts.

While this feature is certainly commendable, is it actually standing up to its purpose? Because it does not look so especially, if you take the fans' perspective into consideration. What many thought would be a big improvement quickly turned into a letdown for the fans. The replay system feels incomplete, and fans who waited almost four years are demanding fixes. So, in this article, we will cover all major issues faced by fans after the release of the VALORANT replay system.

VALORANT’s Replay System Leaves Pros, Coaches, and Creators Empty-Handed

Limited Access and Lack of Scrim Support

Starting out with one of the biggest problems now raised by players is how restricted the system feels. Right now, replays are tied only to the matches you personally played in. That means you cannot review a teammate’s game, you cannot check out a pro match, and you cannot go back to custom lobbies you weren’t part of. At first glance, this might seem fine since most people want to review their own performance. But in reality, it is a massive roadblock. Imagine a coach trying to study how their players performed in practice games, or a fan hoping to rewatch a pro tournament round to understand the meta. None of this is possible with the current setup.

This lack of access hits the competitive scene the hardest. Pro and semi-pro teams rely heavily on scrims to learn and prepare for tournaments. Being able to go back and watch those scrims is one of the most valuable tools in esports, yet VALORANT offers no support for it. Just recently, popular VALORANT esports pro, Tysen “TenZ" Ngo, expressed his frustration regarding the same issue on his X handle.

Short Lifespan, Missing Tools, and Other Pain Points

Even for the matches you can review, the experience feels limited. Replays expire after just one patch cycle, which is usually about two weeks. Once the game updates, your old replays are gone. For players who want to build a long-term archive, or creators who want to collect highlights over time, this is a serious problem. Esports teams cannot even revisit scrims from the same season if they were played before a patch. With how often VALORANT is updated, it makes the replay system feel temporary rather than reliable.

On top of that, the tools provided are barebones. There’s no detailed breakdown of the economy, no stats on ability usage, and no way to see communication logs. Games like CS: GO and Overwatch give analysts deep insights through their replay systems, letting them break down every small detail.

To make matters much worse, the system is also buggy. Players have reported strange issues like smokes appearing in the wrong place, floating doors, or animations not syncing correctly.

Issues for Esports Coach and Content Creation

If it is taken together, if not, these issues harm both esports and the content creation industry; it certainly seems with no benefits. Pro players and coaches cannot leverage the full potential of using replays to develop strategies, while creators cannot develop frag movies, tutorials, or breakdowns without doing awkward workarounds. Because replays can't be shared or exported, we cannot rely upon files locked to a single account. A player cannot simply share the replay with their coach or editor. Similarly, content creators are stuck with the old method of recording gameplay manually, which seems an archaic solution compared to what other games offer.

This is particularly disappointing for a community that depends on creativity and competition. A proper replay system could allow highlight reels, full strategy videos, and improved training for potential players of all levels.

And what hurts players even more is the long wait. Riot mentioned back in 2020 that a replay system was in progress, so players interpreted the long wait to mean they must be getting something polished. The version launched feels more like a prototype rather than a full feature. Then there was the disappointment of former employees explaining that replays were not important because they brought no revenue, while cosmetics and battle passes continued to be updated regularly. For many fans, this signals an interesting mix of what Riot values more: the monetization of the game or the competitive health of the game.

This is where a detailed Valorant Guide for new and professional players alike could have been enriched by replay-based tutorials, something the current system doesn’t allow smoothly. Without it, both casual players and competitive coaches remain limited in how they learn and improve.

Even so, the replay system is not entirely without value. Casual players can still enjoy rewatching their favorite moments, but for professionals, coaches, and content creators, it does not provide the depth they need. Riot now has an opportunity to turn this around and make improvements as soon as they can. Let's see whether Riot Games soon addresses this situation and acknowledges audience feedback.