Valorant beta guide: How to unlock new characters

Valorant’s closed beta comes with five characters, called Agents, unlocked for everyone who starts the game. Those free Agents are Phoenix, Sage, Sova, Brimstone, and Jett. But another five Agents are locked away and require players to earn them. Unfortunately the game doesn’t tell you exactly what you need to do to get access to these characters. In that light, here are all the ways you can unlock new Agents like Raze, Breach, Cypher, Viper, and Omen in the Valorant beta.

During the beta, you can unlock two agents completely for free, just by playing a few games. When you first log in, you’ll have a mission that requires you to earn levels. There will be a progress bar at the bottom of your screen on the “Latest” tab in the main menu that will show how much XP you need to earn. There are 10 levels and a new Agent can be selected at Level 5 and again at Level 10. Depending on how well you do in each match, reaching Level 10 takes somewhere between three and five hours.

You can activate Contracts on the Agent screen in the Collection tab of the main menu. The Contract for each Agent requires you to earn a certain amount of XP by playing the game. This XP can be earned by playing any of the other characters in the game. Each level unlocks different cosmetic items, and at level five you unlock the Agent themselves.

You can only have one Contract open at a time, but if you switch Contracts partway through, you won’t lose any of the progress you earned when you switch back.

If you’re in a hurry and don’t want to level up your Contracts by earning XP, you can also just pay to unlock the levels. Each level costs 200 Valorant Points to unlock, which means you’ll need 1000, (about $10) to buy five levels and unlock the Agent.

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