Valorant Dev hints at new maps in 2021

On a recent live stream, Valorant Game Director Joseph Ziegler dropped hints about more maps possibly joining the Valorant map pool before the end of the year.

On January 11th, Tyler Erzberger, aka FionnOnFire, hosted a live stream hangout on the Valorant Twitch channel. He was joined by several Valorant developers, including Game Director Joseph Ziegler and Game Designer Sal Garazzo. The developers briefly touched upon different maps in Valorant, and they also dropped hints about any possible future maps.

Related: Everything new from the Valorant live-stream hangout, new ranking system, Valorant Championship, and more

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The maps of Valorant and future locations

Currently, there are 5 maps in Valorant. They are Ascent, Bind, Heaven, Icebox, and Split. Among them, Bind, Heaven, and Split launched with the game, while Ascent and Icebox were launched in Episode 1 Act 1 and Act 3, respectively.

The developers mentioned that Split received the most updates throughout Episode 1. They even said that a future patch is incoming for Split.

Game Director Joseph Ziegler and Game Designer Sal Garazzo were asked about the future maps coming to the Valorant map pool. According to Joseph Ziegler, the team is aiming for more varieties of maps to include in the roster. They are targeting for at least seven maps to be available in the map pool.

Two new maps were introduced during Episode 1. One map was supposed to be introduced with each episode. Icebox was originally planned for Episode 2. Since each episode lasts for about 6 months, Episode 3 should be debuting around July 2021. A new map should be introduced with Episode 3.

If a new map debuts with Episode 3, that would take the map pool to six. However, developers released Icebox before the scheduled time. So it is quite possible for a 7th map to debut by the end of the year, completing the targetted 7 map pool, just in time for the Valorant Championship in December 2021.

Based on several easter eggs, it is possible to deduce the location of a potential new map. Currently, the top possible locations are Califonia and Papua New Guinea.

Episode 2 act 1 released with major changes, including a revamped rank progression and leaderboard. However, fans are already looking forward to the next act of Episode 2: Formation.