VALORANT players feel the game has lost its spark due to ‘incredibly stale’ map rotations

VALORANT players this week are fed up with the game’s map rotations and feel Riot Games is doing more harm than good by cycling through older maps. Some are tired of playing the same maps back to back, while others want casual modes to offer the game’s “inactive” map pool.

VALORANT players discussed concerns with the current map pool in an April 20 post on Reddit. The map pool was last tweaked at the start of the first act of Episode Eight on Jan. 9, 2024. You can queue into any of the seven maps randomly across VALORANT’s game modes but players aren’t given the option to choose the map they wish to play, while maps not in the current pool remain hidden from sight altogether.

“They’re doing it for the game to be ‘easier to learn for newer players,’ but honestly the only thing it probably does for newer players is just make them grow tired from the game much quicker,” the post’s author said. Several players also shared how they despise queueing into what was once their favorite map because of how much they’ve been forced to play it. While Riot explained in May 2022 why this can happen, it appears players are still running into the issue of map repetition and further action needs to be taken by devs.

Others are also baffled as to why Riot doesn’t allow players to access the game’s other maps in unranked modes. Unlike VALORANT, modes in rival FPS Counter-Strike 2 let players pick and ban maps in its Premier mode, or simply select the maps they’d like to play in standard Competitive. Additionally, you can play maps that aren’t in the competitive pool when queueing for the casual modes in CS2.

Players aren’t the only ones raising their concerns. On April 14 LOUD IGL Matias “Saadhak” Delipetro said this map rotation was the worst since they started playing. “it’s already boring for me, I can’t even imagine it for you,” Saadhak said in a translation of the X (formerly Twitter) post. A couple of weeks before this, Sentinels’ superstar Tyson “TenZ” Ngo joked about Breeze and Icebox being a nightmare in the map pool.

Maps like Breeze and Sunset continue to be dodged by VALORANT players across the globe. Sunset was the last new map, introduced on Aug. 29, 2023, so it’ll be interesting to see whether Riot brings a new map with Act Three, Episode Eight which is expected to kick off on April 30. Otherwise, players who are unhappy with the current rotation will likely need to wait for Episode Nine before getting a refreshed map pool.