There are four regions of play in VCT, and yet there are only three regions with an English broadcast on Twitch or YouTube. The one without an English broadcast? China.
The official release of Valorant in China came later than it did in other regions, as did its entry into the VCT. In 2024, Riot had their Chinese broadcast available to all, but it was only understood by locals. This wasn't a big deal in the region's first official year in VCT, but then the best team in China won Champions, and everything changed.
EDward Gaming
EDward Gaming
China
Rank #2
ZmjjKK
Zheng Yongkang (郑永康)
nobody
Wang Senxu (王森旭)
CHICHOO
Wan Shunzhi (万顺治)
Smoggy
Zhang Zhao (张钊)
Jieni7
Zhang Juntai (张君泰)
winning Champions in 2024 suddenly put a lot of foreign eyes on the Chinese region, but to everyone's surprise, VCT 2025 wouldn't have an official English broadcast of the China streams. This was a gap nobody thought would be filled this year, but then a talented and dedicated group got permission to co-stream China and make their own volunteer English broadcast.
This group, named Project Horizon, is available on both YouTube and Twitch and works like any co-stream, but the group behind the streams is working to make it their own English broadcast of VCT China. They are already working on the ongoing China playoffs for Stage 1, with no intent to stop when Stage 2 comes by later this year.
The key members behind this team are observer and producer Dries "Magnum" Magnus, caster and analyst Patrick "Akamask" Decker, and Game Changers EMEA broadcast coordinator and producer Francis Chan. All of them spent time working in the tier two scene for Valorant, involved with events such as the Challengers DACH scene, Game Changers EMEA, and plenty more. However, it was the combination of some similar ideas and a timely coincidence that led to them working together.
“We weren't aware of each other's plans,” said Magnum , “but after working in Game Changers alongside Fran, we thought, ‘How is there not even an English co-stream committed to this?'”
At first, it was nothing more than an idea, but then a chance encounter with a certain German caster started turning the gears.
“We were dismayed, but on Twitter, we saw Akamask running a version of it on his channel, and we realized there was a chance,” Magnum said. “Fran and I were working on this alone during Kickoff, contacting people through VCT EMEA to get permission, but it didn't go anywhere. After seeing Akamask's stream, we were motivated again and reached out and finally got it.”
The main art for Project Horizon. (Image from Project Horizon)
If those permissions had come in sooner, there was a chance that they could've been co-streaming the entirety of Stage 1, but the timing just worked better for Stage 1 playoffs. Even though he has yet to debut as a caster for Project Horizon himself, Akamask has done a lot to get this project active.
“Other works of mine ended, and I wanted to continue to cast English VALORANT and saw the opportunity to cast China,” Akamask said. “It's a little sad that I can't cast with Project Horizon yet due to scheduling, but there will be those chances to expose more tier two casters to the tier one scene.”
Not only is Project Horizon giving fans an easier way to access Chinese games, it's also allowing talent to show what they've got at a tier one level despite having few opportunities otherwise due to the limited number of caster slots in VCT. The broadcast itself isn't Riot-made, and is entirely volunteer work, but the games shown are of franchised VCT teams, something that tier two casters only have opportunities to cast in third-party or off-season tournaments.
It isn't only casters getting involved in Project Horizon, though, as one of its progenitors was also working to translate the live post-match interviews from the official Riot broadcast. That is Fran, who most notably works as the Broadcast Coordinator for VCT Game Changers EMEA with DivE. While their talent in coordination was huge in setting up Project Horizon, their native understanding of both Mandarin and Cantonese added another layer of professionalism to a fan-made broadcast. More recently, Beedos has joined forces to work on live translation, verifying and improving the quality of content.
“I grew up in Hong Kong, so I know I can help with communication and translation,” Fran said. “We all saw the gap in China, and the lack of English coverage can make the region feel like an underdog, but if people saw them more, they could see the strength. We're trying to provide that with Project Horizon; not only casting in English, but more overall information for the region, including live interviews, translations, and stats. This Project is still growing, and we're trying to get the basics done first.”
Those basics include making the entire broadcast more seamless with the Riot broadcast that they work off of, better chat moderation, and keeping their license with Riot so this project can stay alive. Add to that more resources so casters can pronounce the unique in-game names from China and look into more of their stats, and the broadcast can improve without the fan immediately noticing.
Casters Volt and NaoriMizuki on the Project Horizon broadcast. (Image via Project Horizon)
The goal isn't to be flashy; the goal is to be solid, especially for an underappreciated region that only had a few English co-streams in the past. Those same streams, most notably the solo former co-streams from Ryan "RyanCentral" Horton, were some of the inspirations for this project's existence. Another key inspiration, this time from Akamask, referenced the English broadcast of the LPL, which was another community-made broadcast that brought enough good memories to inspire Project Horizon.
If anything, that's the one thing that the Project Horizon team wants fans to know about their broadcast: that it's by the community and for the community. The people behind the screen setting this broadcast up are doing this out of their passion for Valorant and desire to fill in a gap in the VCT viewing experience. It takes a lot of effort to do, but seeing the fans in their YouTube and Twitch chats enjoying the experience is one of the best feelings after all the planning they went through.
“We started this project not to make Riot feel bad, but instead to have some fun and grow a community, which is needed in esports,” Fran said. “If you stay long enough on our channel, you'll see support for a lot of teams, people bantering with others, and that's one of the things that makes me feel accomplished. I hope to see more of that.”
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