Valorant: the parent’s guide
Tactical shooter with rough voice chat. Here’s the lockdown settings and the age call.
Valorant is Riot Games' free-to-play tactical shooter: five-a-side, character-based and built around voice chat, rated Teen by the ESRB and PEGI 16 in Europe. It is played heavily by teenagers below those ratings, and its voice chat is among the roughest in mainstream gaming. Under 14 the honest answer is to wait; from 14 to 16, friends-only voice and text with supervised spending is the workable setup.
What Valorant is
Valorant is Riot Games’ free-to-play tactical shooter. 5v5, character-based, voice-chat-enabled. Rated Teen by the ESRB, and PEGI 16 in Europe. Heavily played by teens despite the rating.
Riot account setup
- Create a Riot account at the correct age — under-16 accounts in EU/UK get stricter defaults.
- Attach a parent email as recovery on the Riot account.
- Set up Riot’s Parent Portal, new in July 2026: add your email under the account management tab of your child’s account, then follow the emailed link to parents.riotgames.com. United States and PC only at the moment.
- Two-step verification on. Riot authenticator app or TOTP.
- Set up Riot’s Parent Portal: open your child’s account management tab, enter a parent email, then use the portal to turn text and voice chat off or limit them to friends, block friend requests, restrict which Riot games are playable, or disable the account. Currently United States only, covering League of Legends, VALORANT and Teamfight Tactics on PC. Once verified, your child cannot remove it until they turn 18.
Chat & voice settings
- Text Chat › disable team chat with strangers — friends-only if possible.
- Voice Chat › Party voice only; disable team voice by default.
- Text filter — set to strict.
- Block muted players permanently.
- Parent Portal › turn text and voice chat off outright or limit both to friends only, and stop friend requests being sent or accepted. These sit on the account rather than in the game’s own settings menu.
- Turn off Discord Rich Presence if you don’t want voice-chat details broadcast in Discord.
Real risks
- Voice chat toxicity. Valorant’s voice chat is notoriously harsh, especially in competitive queue. Disable voice and stick to friends-only parties.
- Predatory matchmaking in low ranks — adult players specifically target kid accounts. Keep your kid in friends parties.
- Skin scams — fake Riot points giveaways.
- Grooming via Valorant Discord servers linked from game chat.
Time and spending
- Competitive ranked mode encourages long play sessions. Use OS-level screen time, not the game’s limits (it doesn’t have any).
- Valorant skins cost real money. Neither the Riot account nor the Parent Portal offers a spending limit — lock at the OS level.
Parent recommendation
Under 14: wait. Ages 14-16: friends-only voice + text, parent-supervised spending. Ages 16+: same, but loosening voice-chat as the teen demonstrates they can manage it.
Common questions
What age is Valorant appropriate for?
It is rated Teen by the ESRB, and PEGI 16 in Europe. In practice: under 14, wait. Ages 14–16, friends-only voice and text with parent-supervised spending. From 16, the same baseline, loosening voice chat as your teenager shows they can handle it.
How do I turn off Valorant’s voice chat?
Set Voice Chat to party voice only and disable team voice by default, restrict text chat to friends where possible, set the text filter to strict, and block muted players permanently. Valorant’s competitive voice chat is notoriously harsh, so this is the highest-value change you can make.
Do adults deliberately target kids in Valorant?
It happens in low ranks, where adult players seek out obviously young accounts. Keeping your child in friends-only parties rather than solo queue is the practical defence.
Can I limit Valorant spending?
Not in the game — there is no purchase limit on a Riot account. Lock spending at the operating-system level through Screen Time or Family Link instead. The same applies to play time: Valorant has no built-in limits, so ranked sessions run as long as your child keeps queueing.
How should I set up my child’s Riot account?
Create it with the correct age — under-16 accounts in the EU and UK receive stricter defaults automatically — attach a parent email for recovery, and turn on two-step verification using the Riot authenticator or a TOTP app.
When parental controls change
Game chat and crossplay settings get renamed and reorganised between seasons. Roughly monthly we send new guides, changes to controls like these, and scams worth knowing about.
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