When does Episode 3 - Act 1 start? Everything known about Valorant’s upcoming patch and agent release

Valorant has provided multiple updates over the course of the year, including two episodes, each having three Acts respectively. With Episode 2 coming to an end, it is time for another major update.

During these Acts, many new agents were added, including Reyna, Killjoy, Skye, Yoru and Astra. When Episode 2 Act 3 was released, however, there was a new map but no new agent. There are rumors about a new agent as Episode 3 gets closer. A well-known Valorant data-miner also teased the community about a new upcoming character.

For the upcoming agent who is codenamed “Grenadier” there are 2 new buffs that could happen called “Suppression” | #VALORANT"Suppressed":"Buffs.HUD.Suppressed""SuppressionAssist":"Assist.Suppression"

— Mike - Valorant Leaks & Info (@ValorLeaks) June 10, 2021

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All the information on Valorant's new agent

On June 11th, Riot Games tweeted about the Summer Game Fest 2021 with a short teaser about the next agent. As can be perceived from the video, a metal body hanging with a green glow along with a robot head with some animated prompts were shown.

Spotted @summergamefest 👀 pic.twitter.com/JBYWJvaEk4

— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) June 10, 2021

The agent is almost undoubtedly a robot with the codename 'Grenadier.' According to Cipher on Reddit, the new agent may be familiar with players who are accustomed to "traditional FPS games." These FPS elements will be added to this agent in order for it to fit into Valorant's ecosystem.

Cipher from Reddit (Image via Reddit)

In this cipher post, there is a mention of, "can create moments where you must rely on your gameplay,” suggesting his abilities are not so reliable all the time. There are rumors regarding an EMP device, which can explain “the moments” part quoted earlier.

Another popular data-miner on Twitter named “floxay” also teased the Valorant community a few weeks ago by adding a teaser image of a robot through a tweet. The image is of a spray he found by data-mining called “Data Transfer” as its title. His abilities are most likely to be data and information related, which suggests that he could be a Sentinel.

The teaser image is called "Data Transfer", and I just got reminded the other day about this Spray from the previous Battlepass 👀 pic.twitter.com/0B2DCadZ7e

— floxay (@floxayyy) May 28, 2021

“Floxay” also made a tweet regarding the imminent release date for the next Valorant Episode, which is June 22nd. Also, the detailed release date for each Acts is listed and will most likely end in January next year.

Episode 3;Jun 22 - Jan 11Act 1: Jun 22 - Aug 24Act 2: Aug 24 - Oct 19Act 3: Oct 19 - Jan 11

— floxay (@floxayyy) June 8, 2021

Ever since the post was made on Twitter, rumors about the next agent's reveal have also been rapidly rising.

Valorant's Episode 3 Act 1 is expected to go live with a new agent sometime next week, possibly June 22nd, 2021.