Ascent is yet again marked safe from the latest Valorant map rotation, but devs assure players that the map won’t be a mainstay in the pool.
If there is one thing that Valorant players await as much as the release of the newest skin bundle, it has to be the announcement of the upcoming map pool. Some players have their favored picks, while some are threatened to see one of the more challenging maps return to the rotation.
Since the inception of the rotating map pool, only one Valorant map has managed to weather the storm of patch changes – Ascent. This sparked speculation that the map could become a permanent fixture in the game’s Competitive mode.
While making Ascent a mainstay map would make the most sense out of other map picks, thanks to its similarity to the range practice map, some players are not thrilled over the notion of Riot Games having a favorite map.
To clear the surrounding speculations, a Valorant dev answered a player claiming that Riot Games is “too scared” to take Ascent out of the rotation. In the comment, the dev (tagged as Product Manager) explained that the team planned to rotate Ascent out in the upcoming patch but ultimately “decided against it.”
The dev further explained that the team will monitor the meta progressions and team comps on each map to decide which should stay. Most notably, the recent return of Split was only short-lived, as the map will soon exit the rotation in the upcoming patch.
Moreover, the developer explains that if an existing map is deemed necessary to be completely removed from the pool, the team would rather rework it, similar to Pearl and Fracture.
Another significant change in the upcoming Valorant episode is the availability of all existing maps in Unrated (unranked) mode. With this change, the map rotation will only be significant in the Competitive, Premiere, and Pro levels of Valorant.
Aside from the map changes, many Valorant players are more thrilled to hear the news about the Replay system. In the video, the dev team shares a prototype sample of the replay system they plan to integrate into the game in future updates.
Valorant Episode 9 is expected to go live on June 25, 2024.