Two new maps and agent bans could come sooner than expected

VALORANT originally released with only Bind, Haven, and Split, the same maps available to players during the closed beta. However, it was quickly apparent that the repetitiveness can take its toll and limit professional players and teams from developing diverse strategies. We have gotten Ascent and Icebox added to the rotation since. The studio is now accelerating their map development to add more sooner than expected.

In a recent interview between Oscar Cañellas "m1xwell" Colocho and VALORANT Game Director Joe “Ziggs” Ziegler, the latter gave a few comments on the current state of development for the tactical shooter’s upcoming maps. He admitted the game doesn’t “have enough [maps] right now,” and they will be the “first to admit it.”

This eventually led to the development team “trying to accelerate the next few maps.” The VALORANT team wants to reach at least seven maps before they introduce a true pick and ban system, unlike the one currently used by tournament organizers.

“We feel like getting to seven is a good starting point. Once we get past that, we can begin really thinking if we’re going to leave maps out of the competitive map pool. Right now we’re sort of thinking about how we get to the point of having about seven, just to start off that conversation.” commented Ziggs.

He continued to touch upon another topic discussed among the VALORANT competitive community, agent bans. We have seen it featured before in one of the studio’s Ask VALORANT blog posts and we have seen it implemented during the A.W EXTREME MASTERS Japan Invitational. The tactical shooter is set to receive an average of 6 agents per year, and we are currently at 13 following the releases of Reyna, Killjoy, and Skye. When does the studio think it is the right time to introduce an agent ban system to its competitive scene?

“I think right now, we’re not doing that, but I think in the future we may think about it. It really depends on how much it adds to the game versus subtracts to the game. Is it more interesting to keep it zero bans and really have everybody think about who the other side is picking and who we want to pick to counter that or who we wanna pick to think about how to restrict that?”

“Or, is it better to think about how we restrict the overall pool and make it so players have to adapt to the scenarios on their end, basically from their meta choices. Those decisions, I think, are hard to tell when we only have 13 characters in the game. But as we’re sort of growing into the future, definitely as we get more characters it’s definitely gonna be one of those conversation points where it’s like, should we put in banning, should we put in the way for teams to influence one another,” revealed Ziggs.

What do you think is the best number of maps for VALORANT to have in its esports ecosystem? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!