Valorant developer Riot Games is welcoming 2023 in with a brand new map rotation. Fan-favourite map Split is coming back to Valorant with January’s patch 6.0, however two maps are being sacrificed as a result of its return.
In a new blog post, maps and modes design lead Joe Lansford says that, not only will Split return, but there will be “a few changes” – these will be detailed in the Valorant patch 6.0 notes when they finally drop.
In return for bringing Split back to the Valorant maps pool for competitive play, both Bind and Breeze will be taken out of the rotation, removing them from the Valorant ranks, as well as its Unrated queue, for the foreseeable future.
As for why these two maps in particular, Lansford says that, “for Breeze, we feel like this map has some room to improve in terms of agents and team comp diversity, as well as some opportunities for simplification of the space. And for Bind, it’s mostly about strategic diversity. We’d like to open up more play around the teleporters and potentially rethink how teams execute, and defend against executes, on both sites.”
Sounds more than fair enough. However, this does leave the aching question as to why Valorant’s competitive map rotation is dropping to six, when in the past Riot has stated that seven is the “sweet spot”. Well, as Pearl was released on Valorant patch 5.0, it looks like Riot is gearing up for a similar release window for the next Valorant map on patch 6.0.
Of course, the new map and its release date are yet to be confirmed by the studio, but all signs point to a brand new arena to click heads on in the new year.