Riot Games has activated Riyadh and Mumbai as playable server options for VALORANT’s Middle East region following a prolonged outage of the primary Bahrain and Dubai servers. The disruption began in early March 2026, following damage to AWS data centre infrastructure in the UAE. The damage was reportedly linked to a fire causing a safety-related shutdown.
Middle East players were automatically rerouted to EU servers during the downtime, resulting in 100ms+ ping, packet loss, and unstable matches. Riot Support officially acknowledged the issue on March 10, 2026, but did not offer any resolution timeline at the time.
Players connecting to Middle East (Bahrain) servers may experience higher latency or packet loss due to regional infrastructure issues. Our teams are working on a fix. We appreciate your patience while this issue is being addressed.—Riot Support, March 10, 2026
How to Connect to Riyadh and Mumbai Servers in VALORANT
Players in the region can manually select Riyadh or Mumbai from the in-game server list. To do so, follow these steps:
- Launch VALORANT
- Click on Play (Top-Centre) and select your gamemode
- Hover your mouse over the network symbol (three vertical bars) at the top of your player card
- Select Riyadh or Mumbai from the list, deselect other servers
Now your game will automatically attempt to matchmake in the Riyadh or Mumbai servers, allowing for lower latency and better network consistency. Riyadh offers lower latency for players across the Gulf region, while Mumbai is a better fit for those in South Asia or the eastern Middle East. Notably, European players have also been granted access to both Riyadh and Mumbai servers as part of this update.
Will Riyadh and Mumbai Servers Be Permanent in VALORANT?
For now, these servers are acting as an emergency continuity measure. Riot Games has not announced plans to permanently replace Bahrain and Dubai. The primary Middle East servers are expected to return once AWS regional infrastructure is fully restored, and no fixed timeline has been provided. Whether Riyadh becomes a long-term dedicated node remains to be seen.
