Riot disables Harbor in Valorant due to game-breaking lag spikes

Brad Norton
Valorant Harbor gameplay

Riot Games has rushed to disable new Agent Harbor from competitive Valorant queues in light of an “unintentional” lag spike issue stemming from his Reckoning ultimate.

Having only just joined Valorant in Episode 5 Act 3, Harbor is the newest addition to the game’s Agent lineup as character number 20. Though despite the recency of his release, having debuted just one month prior, the new arrival has swiftly been disabled.

As of November 17, players can no longer lock in Harbor during their competitive games. This comes as a result of a game-breaking issue caused by his Reckoning Ultimate. Upon casting, there was a chance the enormous visual effect triggered by the ability could cause “unintentional lag spikes,” as Riot confirmed.

For the time being, the Agent has been pulled from the competitive queue while the dev team works on a rapid fix. However, Harbor still appears to be available across quick play, deathmatch, and custom games despite the issue.

As a result, you’ll still need to be cautious should you load in against an enemy Harbor in any of those modes before a solution is deployed.

Harbor’s unique ultimate effect calls on the “full power’ of his Artifact. In doing so, it summons a huge geyser pool on the ground, concussing enemy players caught in its radius. It’s seemingly this visual effect that hit a fair few players with choppy performance as Valorant struggled to keep up in the heat of the moment.

An exact date for the fix is yet to be determined. It could just be a matter of hours before Harbor comes back into the rotation, or it could prove to be a few days should the issue be more complicated than first thought.

We’ll be sure to keep you posted right here with any further information on Harbor’s return in Valorant as details emerge.

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About The Author

Brad Norton is the Australian Managing Editor at Dexerto. He graduated from Swinburne University with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism and has been working full-time in the field for the past six years at the likes of Gamurs Group and now Dexerto. He loves all things single-player gaming (with Uncharted a personal favorite) but has a history on the competitive side having previously run Oceanic esports org Mindfreak. You can contact Brad at brad.norton@dexerto.com