A brand-new VALORANT server is coming to Southeast Asia. Starting August 19, with the launch of Patch 11.04, Manila — the capital of the Philippines — will have its own dedicated server, announced Riot Games on Monday, August 11. This will be the sixth available server for the Asia-Pacific region, joining the existing hubs in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, and Mumbai.

The addition of the Manila server follows the steady growth of the Southeast Asian VALORANT community, particularly within the Philippines. Riot Games says the move is aimed to give local players a higher-quality gameplay experience.

Impacts on other servers

Historically, most Filipino players have played on the Hong Kong server, which raises an important question: Will Hong Kong server be affected by the consequences of the creation of a new server? Splitting a player base can spike queue times, decrease matchmaking quality, and make the game less appealing in general.

According to Riot, though, server populations across Southeast Asia remain healthy, and players on theHong Kong server should not suffer from the departure of its Filipino player base. Players in the Philippines will still have the option to remain on Hong Kong servers if they wish; like most server decisions in VALORANT, the new Manila hub will be a choice to improve ping rather than a forced migration.

The Manila server will also have no impact on Premier tournaments. Top-performing teams competing on the new server will be part of the Asia zone and the Challengers Southeast Asia league.