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The new update for Valorant is almost here and a lot of new features are expected to go live with it. Additionally, the community has another reason to be excited for the new season, as Valorant Episode 5 Act 1 will bring a new map called Pearl to the game.
Riot Games has been teasing this map for a while now, and it could be a very important map for the lore of the game. That said, here is a quick rundown of everything that players need to know about Pearl.
The release date for Valorant's new map, Pearl
Pearl, the new Valorant map, is scheduled to go live on June 22, with the new Episode itself. However, Indian players will have to wait a bit longer in order to play this map.
For the Mumbai servers, Pearl, along with Episode 5 Act 1, will go live during the early hours of June 23, at some point within 2:30 AM to 3:30 AM IST. This timing is just an assumption, based upon the previous patch releases. However, it's unlikely that Riot Games will deviate from this schedule.
What players can expect in the new map in Valorant
The new map is the eighth map in the game. Interestingly enough, Pearl is the first map from the parallel Earth, which is also known as the Omega Earth. This makes Pearl a very important map in the game because it could be lore-heavy.
However, Pearl won't have any special features like ropes or teleporters. It is expected to be a very straightforward map. This map will have three different lanes through which Agents can approach the sites. However, Attackers will have to descend into the Defender territory in order to plant the spike at different sites.
Additionally, Pearl is a map that is apparently based in Portugal, and is the first map that is based underwater. With this map, the developers felt the need to explore how the Omega Kingdom would deal with climate change. The idea of having a sustainable underwater city was something that excited the developers a lot, further pushing the idea of Pearl being based in an underwater location.
"Since Pearl takes place on “Omega Earth,” we wanted to explore how Omega Kingdom would approach climate change and how we would convey this idea visually. The idea of showing the sustainment of cities underwater seemed to be the right visual direction that everyone was excited about. It’s a nice visual juxtaposition of Kingdom Industries structures with older structures of Portugal." - Brian Yam, Art Lead, Concept, Riot Games.
Although the new Valorant map is very straightforward, it will be interesting to see how different Agents fare in terms of usability and abilities on Pearl. While designing this new map, the developers wanted to make it very unique. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that Pearl requires a lot of commitment in terms of engagements. Since there is no additional mobility support like teleporters or ropes, Agents will have to rely on their abilities in order to seek out engagements.
