Valorant Finally Gets a Replay System: Here’s How to Use It

After years of players asking, Riot has finally rolled out a replay system in Valorant. Patch 11.06 brings the long-awaited feature, letting you rewatch your matches without relying on third-party recording software.

Whether you want to analyze mistakes, study strategies, or just rewatch that one clutch, replays are now officially part of the game.

How to Access and Use Replays

1. Update Valorant to Patch 11.06.
2. Open the game and head to your Career or Match Details page.
3. Choose the match you want to revisit.
4. Click the Replay option to load it.
5. Once you’re in, use the timeline and controls to pause, rewind, fast-forward, or switch between player views.

At launch, replays work for Competitive, Unrated, Swiftplay, and Premier matches. PC players outside China already have access, China gets it in October, and console players will have to wait until November.

What You Can Do Inside a Replay

Replays aren’t just static recordings. You can:

• Watch from any player’s first-person view.
• Switch to a free camera to fly around the map.
• Follow projectiles, like Sova’s Recon Dart.
• Skip to specific rounds or moments using timeline icons.
• Adjust playback speed — slow down, speed up, or pause.
• Show or hide the HUD, minimap, and outlines.

Essentially, it’s a full match viewer that lets you break down everything that happened.

Why This Update Matters

Valorant is a game of small margins. Sometimes a lost round comes down to a single missed angle or misused piece of utility. Having replays built into the client means you can finally see those moments clearly. It’s a powerful tool for self-improvement, but also a fun way to relive highlights without juggling OBS recordings.

The one limitation? You can only watch matches you’ve actually played. You can’t download VCT games or your friends’ matches, which makes it less useful for coaching or studying pro play. Riot says it’s listening to feedback, so this might evolve in the future.

Patch 11.06 Brings More Than Replays

Replays weren’t the only change in this update. Riot also shared a few other updates:

• A massive bot ban wave hit 40,000 accounts over the past six months, which should help clean up competitive games.
• A rare bug with Yoru and Reyna’s invisibility, where they could snap back to their original location, has been fixed.
• On PC, the RawInputBuffer setting is now permanently enabled to improve performance.
• On console, a visual bug with highlighted dropped weapons and the Spike will be fixed in the next patch.

So while replays steal the spotlight, Patch 11.06 is also Riot’s way of tightening up performance and dealing with long-standing issues.

What’s Still Missing

Riot admits there are some gaps. Ability placement previews, like Brimstone’s smoke map or Killjoy’s turret outlines, won’t appear in replays. The minimap also shows more info than you’d realistically see during a match. These quirks may take time to fix, but for now, they’re part of the system.

Even with these limitations, the replay feature is a big step forward. It’s been one of Valorant’s most requested additions since launch, and now it’s finally real.

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