Riot Games’ Global Head of Valorant Esports has addressed community complaints after a major Valorant patch landed just weeks before the 2025 Game Changers Championship (GCC) — a move that many fans and players criticised for disrupting tournament prep.
Patch 11.08 is due to drop on October 15, with V25 Act VI, bringing several changes to gunplay, abilities, maps, and more. A number of pros have already expressed their frustration with the incoming changes, as utility is broadly nerfed across the board.
However, the changes coming just weeks before GCC has been a major point of contention, causing fans to ask whether Riot is really taking Game Changers – the circuit for marginalized genders – seriously.
Many Agents are facing utility cooldowns in the upcoming patch. Image Credit: Riot Games
Leo Faria Addresses Backlash to Patch Before GCC
In a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter), Leo Faria admitted the “timing isn’t ideal.” However, he explained that Riot’s development cycle left little flexibility this year.
“In a perfect world, we’d avoid big gameplay changes right before a global tournament, but the reality is that this part of the year is our best window to make meaningful updates to VAL,” Faria said. “That’s important for keeping the game fresh and giving the dev team time to monitor the changes and adjust them before the new season starts in January.
“This hasn’t been a problem in the past because the changes during this window were smaller. But this year’s update is more significant, and because these events are scheduled up to two years in advance (schedule, travel, venue, etc have been locked in for a while), we couldn’t shift things around.”
He also confirmed that Riot considered keeping GCC on the previous patch, but that brought its own complications.
“Most importantly, keeping GCC on the previous patch would have made it much harder for teams to get meaningful practice,” he said. “The majority of scrim partners would be on the live patch, and keeping GC on a separate version would limit the quality and quantity of prep time.”
Hey all, wanted to share some context on the recent patch and how it affects this year’s Game Changers Championship.
The timing isn’t ideal and we know that. In a perfect world, we’d avoid big gameplay changes right before a global tournament, but the reality is that this part…
— Leo Faria (@lhfaria) October 14, 2025
Teams will now have between 2.5 and 5 weeks to adapt before competition begins — a window Faria said is consistent with past events, even though this update is more significant than others
Looking ahead, Faria said Riot is exploring changes to the tournament calendar to avoid a repeat of the situation.
“We’re looking at ways to improve this for next year, including moving GCC earlier in the calendar and closer to Champs so it’s less affected by changes like these,” he said.
This is the second time Faria has had to address issues on social media in recent weeks; at the end of September, he spoke out against complaints regarding Valorant sponsoring Twitch’s Subtember campaign.
The 2025 Game Changers Championship will take place November 20-30 in LoL Park, Seoul, South Korea.