VALORANT Game Director discusses new long-term plans on adding maps

VALORANT originally released with only three maps, and it was quickly apparent there is a need for more in both casual and competitive play. The original plans were to launch major features and map releases alongside the start of every new episode, which means there is a six months wait for significant additions to VALORANT. However, we saw Icebox release much earlier than scheduled and change things up.

VALORANT Game Director Joe “Ziggs” Ziegler discussed the changes the studio introduced to their long-term map plans and how the development team aims to get more maps to the community as soon as they can. He clarified it is Riot Games’ top priority to increase the competitive map pool, in order to give players a diverse range of strategic experiences.

He continued to emphasize that the current five maps count isn’t ideal, and aims to reach at least seven before considering the pool healthy for casual and competitive players. Ziegler addressed the community’s request for modding and the addition of community-made maps.

It will prove rather difficult for the studio to make it available at this time, as building a scalable community sharing platform alongside the required map-making tools “would take years of development to get off the ground.”

This isn’t the first time we heard Ziegler discuss the studio’s upcoming plans, as we saw him mention VALORANT will see two new maps and agent bans introduced sooner than expected during his interview with Oscar Cañellas "m1xwell" Colocho.

What do you think of Riot Games’ changes to their map release schedule? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!