With Patch 1.11 now finally released, Valorant players were looking forward to getting to grips with the new map, Icebox – but the reaction hasn’t been as Riot might have hoped.
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Patch 1.11 has delivered a whole host of new features into Valorant. With Skye finally making her appearance on Future Earth, as well as Breach getting some game-changing buffs that were left out of the official patch notes, Valorant has become quite a different game.
One of the other main features of the new update, though, is Icebox. The new map is a former excavation site for a long lost kingdom that has fallen under a veil of ice and snow. Set in the arctic tundra, fans were excited to explore this very different looking map.
However, opinion on the map is very divided.
Icebox isn’t proving popular…
Valorant announcing that Icebox will be available during the global First Strike tournament after 30 November was met with a wave of backlash from players.
Due to the redeploy of patch 1.11, Skye will be available for esports events that begin after November 16th.
Icebox will be available for esports events that begin after 11/30. In most regions, this will be the First Strike Main Event that begins on December 3rd.
— VALORANT (@VALORANT) November 4, 2020
One of the most popular responses to this Tweet came from user SingularityCS, who called for the map to be removed from the game entirely due to the easy lines of sight making players feel like sitting ducks in a shooting arena.
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remove icebox as a map completely. Sorry but it just isn't the right move for the scene. Too many angles to clear and it has too many vertical vantage points.Remember the patch where we no longer had to hard clear a lot of corners in all the maps? This map just made it 10x worse
— Singularity (@SingularityCS) November 4, 2020
This disappointment also translated across to the Valorant subreddit, where a poll by user jonweck showed that, while 1000 users simply voted ‘meh’ to the map, the opinion swung in the direction of dislike with ‘hate it’ currently beating out ‘love it’, comfortably.
Among the comments there are several calls for the map to be deleted entirely from the game, with most users echoing SingularityCS’ tweet.
Others compared it to a Call of Duty map, where any misstep means certain death at the hands of at least 5 different players.
Some fans really love Icebox
Despite the waves of criticism that the map has received, some fans have really enjoyed playing the map. Although the positive comments seem to be much fewer than their negative counterparts, the map appeals to different people for different reasons.
Maybe once fans see it in professional play they’ll be able to adapt their strategy to fit this very different style of map. Until then, however, we’ll just have to try out the map for ourselves and see what we make of it.
