Valorant players slam Episode 8’s “awful” new map pool

Big changes are coming to Valorant in Episode 8 as Riot Games has announced a new map pool for the start of 2024.

Valorant has come a long way since it only had three maps to choose from during its beta phase. Now, with many venues for players to fight on, the developer has been giving fans different rotations of map pools as it works on maps that aren’t in the rotation.

For Episode 8, the developer announced on January 2 that it is introducing a new rotation of maps to the game. The start of 2024 will kick off with Icebox, Lotus, Sunset, Breeze, Ascent, Bind and Split all in the map pool with changes coming to both Icebox and Lotus.

This new rotation removes Haven, Pearl and Fracture from the rotation as Riot will go into the lab to improve them for a future return. However, Valorant fans on social media are not fans of the new map rotation.

Valorant fans upset with new map pool

Fans of the Riot tactical shooter seem upset over one map that has been taken out, Haven, more so than any map added to the rotation.

“Please take out Ascent we love Haven,” one social media user said.

Ascent has been one of the most stable maps in Valorant and hasn’t left the rotation since its introduction in Patch 1.0. The professional community has been calling for some kind of change to Ascent, and thus its removal from the map pool, due to its stale meta as most teams have been running the same Agent compositions and strategies for almost two years.

Haven, on the other hand, is considered a dynamic map thanks to its three bomb sites and has also been in the map rotation every time it has been changed up until this Episode.

The casual community also has an issue with Ascent in the rotation but seems to just generally not enjoy the lineup as a whole.

“Worst map rotation ever,” another social media user said.

The new map rotation was leaked about a week ago and fans, at the time, were split on the return of Icebox. The icy map has gone through some massive changes since it was last seen in the rotation, which some players have welcomed and others have shunned.

Valorant fans will have to wait for the new patch and Episode to drop before getting to try out the rotation, and map changes, for themselves.