Valorant Game Director Delivers Good News on New Maps for ‘Ideal’ Diversity

Valorant is currently one of the top-tier tactical FPS titles out there. It is one of the more balanced games out there in terms of agents, abilities, and weapons. However, there has been one persistent complaint about the game in terms of diversity in maps. This is something the devs at Riot Games have been constantly working on in order to fix. They have also mentioned a couple of times that this is one of their most discussed topics.

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In the latest Dev Diaries video, Game Director Joe Ziegler talks about this. He says that this is the reason why releasing the Icebox map as soon as possible was so important for the devs.

“Even with all our teams still working from home, we’ve been updating Valorant at an insane pace since launch… This is why getting a fifth map to you earlier than expected was so important to us… We needed to meet your legitimate demands for more gameplay variety outside of just new agents.”

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“With five we’re on our way, but I still don’t think that’s ideal”: Valorant Game Director on map diversity

The game has been a newcomer to the lineup of competitive eSports, but it has already built up quite an extensive competitive ecosystem. Riot Games has also announced that the game is about to host its own Worldwide Championship in the upcoming year. Looks like we will see Valorant rising to the competitive grandeur of League of Legends, the hugely popular MMORPG from Riot Games.

However, devs themselves recognize the fact that the game currently lacks the map diversity required for hosting a competitive environment. In the dev diaries video, Joe Ziegler says,

“Our top priority is increasing our competitive map tool so that you get a diverse range of strategic experiences and settings every night. Four maps is definitely not enough, and with five we’re on our way, but I still don’t think that’s ideal. I would say we need at least a couple more before we can feel comfortable with our map diversity relative to the needs of both competitive and casual play.”

“Believe me when I tell you we understand the incredible value of community-made maps”: Joe Ziegler

As for community-made maps, Joe says that he understands their value. However, he also lays emphasis on the fact that this is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve, and will take some years to accomplish.

“Believe me when I tell you we understand the incredible value of community-made maps… This is a discussion we have all the time- it’s one Sal Garozzo, senior designer on maps, has been a constant advocate for.

“Building a scalable, community sharing platform and set of map-making tools would take years of development to get off the ground, not to mention a different team and even more time spent supporting it in the long term.”

Weighing that against the content they can currently add to the game with their current team, devs at Riot decided against it. Joe adds, “We want each new map we introduce to be fully supported and integrated within the Valorant ecosystem.

“A new map should feel grounded in the IP, and we need to have the ability to make balance changes, or address exploits, as we see them.”

Overall, looks like community-made maps are a far-off possibility in Valorant. However, devs have assured that they will be adding more maps to the map rotation to ensure diversity in gameplay. Well, the community sure has good things to look forward to from this game!