Key Highlights:
- Valorant recently unveiled patch notes for version 11.09.
- This patch introduces MFA for shared accounts.
- This move is appreciated, as it will likely stop smurfing and hackers running loose.
Valorant recently received a major update in the form of version 11.09, which brought with it quite a few quality of life improvements, bug fixes and finally, the introduction of multi factor authentication for shared accounts.
There’s a lot more in store for us in this particular Valorant update, shared in the full patch notes post below. This patch also happens to target hackers and smurfs, both of whom are noted to absolutely ruin the overall player experience – even more so for newcomers, who are a large part of Valorant’s player base.
Valorant to Force Multi Factor Authentication for Shared Accounts in Certain Regions
As detailed in the rather long patch notes for version 11.09, Valorant is now set to introduce a series of monumental changes to the game. The first and most notable change here is the mandatory requirement for Multi Factor Mobile Authentication (MFA) across accounts marked as shared.
— VALORANT (@VALORANT) October 28, 2025
In other words, accounts that have been flagged as sharing progress between players will have to enable Riot’s own MFA to gain access to the Competitive Queue. The exact mechanism of this detection has been purposefully left out, but we can expect legitimate users to remain wholly unaffected.
The change will apply to users in the following regions, as of the time of writing this article:
- North America
- LATAM
- KR
- BR
It’s just a guess, but we expect this feature to be fully integrated across all accounts in the near future. This does not affect non competitive game modes.
Additionally, MFA has been deemed to be mandatory for accounts having an Ascendant rank or above, starting from as early as patch version 11.10.
This makes the need for mobile verification almost mandatory, and you can read more on the whole process here. The entire process is rather simple and shouldn’t really take more than a few minutes to set up using the Riot mobile app.
While Disruptive, This Change Will Stop a Lot of Smurf Accounts and Hackers
Smurfing is a serious challenge to deal with in video games, and even more so in competitive games such as Valorant. Nothing makes player progression feel worse than having a high ranked player taking out newbies ‘for fun’.
It’s quite a frustrating experience, and one that Riot Games aims to address in full with update 11.09. Introducing 2FA/MFA to the game effectively lowers a large portion of smurfers, by forcing them to authenticate with their credentials every time they log in.
While bordering on the line of being a bit invasive, this could be seen as a necessary step in the war against both cheaters and smurfs. After all, a large portion of these suspicious accounts often happen to be hacked and sold along the way, which made the detection of legitimate accounts a hassle.
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It’s not perfect just yet though, and the team at Epic Games plans on expanding and further refining the MFA experience across all players. This includes concerns of false detections, errors within the Riot Mobile verification process, and miscellaneous other issues.
MFA has been deemed as a ‘beta release’, and will take into account player feedback for future changes. As such, this feature is evolving, and will likely need a lot more time to cook.
Here’s hoping that Valorant/Riot Games sticks to their guns, and that their war against smurfing and hackers finally takes a turn for the better.
