How to unlock Valorant Agents fast

Unlocking Agents in Valorant can be a bit of a grind, but there are a few ways to fast-track the process to access every character much quicker!

Understanding everything from how experience is awarded to how the Contract system works will help you quickly grind the mound of XP needed for getting access to Valorant’s entire cast of Agents. But getting access to all of the characters on Future Earth doesn’t have to be such a daunting task. Given that there’s only a handful of ways to actually get experience points in the game, following these simple steps will set you up for a happier climb as you grind.

Activating Agent Contracts

Activating an Agent Contract is as simple as going to the ‘Collection,’ hitting the ‘Agents’ tab, and scrolling through the locked characters that weren’t acquired with the free ‘Unlock Agent’ tokens at the start of the game.

• Read more: Ultimate Valorant beginner’s guide: Everything you need to know

In every Contract, players will have to get to Tier 5 to unlock the Agent it corresponds with. It doesn’t matter how much XP you earn if you’re not putting it to use by activating an Agent Contract on the character you want to unlock!

Unlock Agent reward tokens

The game will give players a helping hand once they complete the mini-contract to start their climb of unlocking the various Agents. There are ‘Unlock Agent’ rewards that people can acquire in order to instantly recruit a character to your roster. Valorant will give players two chances to unlock a free Agent at Level 5 and Level 10, but that will still leave you with a few characters left to collect.

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It’s worth noting that going into The Range lets you try out any of the characters in the game. If you’re a little confused as to which Agent you want to choose, this gives you a perfect chance to try things out beforehand.

How to earn XP

There are two ways to earn XP while playing Valorant: Completing challenges and adding the values for individual rounds played out. People will get 100 XP from simply playing a round. An additional 200 XP is given for every round won, making the combined experience points a player can earn in one round 300 XP. An overtime victory will give a total of 5100 XP — the highest possible amount a player can earn in one match.

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Weekly and Daily challenges range from simply playing a game through to dealing a certain amount of damage in multiple matches. The important thing to note is that any XP awarded will simultaneously contribute to both the Story Contract and Agent Contracts.

How much XP does it take to unlock an Agent?

Valorant players will quickly find that unlocking all of the characters will be an unforgiving grind. Any character that you didn’t use your free tokens for will require you to reach Level 5 on their Contract to add them to your collection.

• Read more: Valorant weapon guide: Damage stats for all guns

Here’s where the points breakdown for the tiers comes into play. Tier 1 takes 25,000 XP to complete, and every tier after takes an additional 25,000 XP on top of the one before. To complete Tier 2, it will take an accumulated 75,000 XP (25,000 XP for Tier 1 + 50,000 for Tier 2). This means, down the line, a total of 375,000 XP will be needed to reach Tier 5 and unlock the Agent in that Contract.

Maximize XP through Missions

At launch, players will have two simultaneous missions to earn progress for while playing Valorant. While most players will complete these missions without noticing, it’s important to keep track of them, since they give out a huge amount of XP.

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Upon completing certain missions, players can earn up to 5,000 XP per mission. Of course, this number changes with each individual mission, but that’s around the expected amount of XP to expect from these challenges. This is especially crucial to factor in, considering that’s about as much as an overtime match win gives to players!

Unlock Agents by purchasing

For players with a bit of spending cash who don’t want to go through a climb just to unlock the extra Agents, it should be said that there’s a way to outright buy into the characters.

• Read more: How to play as Cypher: Valorant’s one-man surveillance Sentinel Agent

Instead of climbing to Tier 5 in a Contract, players can purchase 1,000 Creds to instantly boost through the levels and get that specific Agent. With a rough estimate of $10 (USD), that can soon rack up if you plan on doing that for all your character unlocks… Plus, where’s the fun in that?

Optimize gameplay to earn XP

The most important detail to understand is that earning XP isn’t tied to any in-game achievement like getting a certain amount of headshots or planting Spikes (unless a daily/weekly mission dictates to do so). People looking to maximize their XP intake per game should look to play like a team to extend games into later rounds as much as possible.

• Read more: How to play as Phoenix: Valorant’s fiery Duelist Agent

That means finding ways to etch out as many round wins as possible, dropping the ‘fragger’ mentality, since individual accolades that come with a hard in-game carry don’t contribute to XP. It’s going to be a climb to unlock all of the Agents in Valorant, but players that make use of every tool the game gives them will make the grind that much less painful.