Some time in mid-October, Valorant Act 3 went live with the release of patch 1.10, and with it came a brand-new map called Icebox. This new map featured new areas to cover and even zip lines, along with a unique focus on vertical battles.
To the fanbase’s surprise, the new map was released earlier than expected, even though it was supposed to remain in beta for a few more weeks. Icebox is set somewhere with a lot of ice, probably in the Arctics, as the entire area is covered in snow.
The addition of a new map was appealing to the players at first, especially since they have been complaining that Riot’s free-to-play multiplayer has a tendency to keep repeating maps in a queue. After all, there were only four maps available in the game before Icebox was added.
Just last week, Riot Games decided to roll back patch 1.11 due to technical issues, such as the glitch wherein Sova’s Drone would be able to pass through walls and fly underground. The official Valorant Twitter account announced that the update will be re-released within a week.
Not only that, but it was confirmed that the thirteenth Agent, Skye, as well as the new map Icebox will be made available for eSports events. However, it appears that not everyone is pleased with the new map, with some players going so far as wanting it removed.
According to SingularityCS, the Twitter user who responded to Riot’s recent tweet, Icebox has “too many angles to clear and it has too many vertical vantage points.” The player went on to say that there was a previous Valorant patch that fixed the need to “hard clear a lot of corners,” and claimed that Icebox only made everything worse.
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
It can also be seen in a Valorant poll posted on Reddit that other players also felt the same way about Icebox. Redditor jonweck asked for the opinion of the other players regarding the new map, with the poll options being “Love it,” “Meh,” and “Hate it.” A lot of fans voted for “Meh.”
As a matter of fact, many players in the comment section mirrored SingularityCS’ thoughts. One reply even described Icebox as “mediocre to awful.” On the other hand, there are also a fair amount of players who say that they like Icebox, even though there are a lot of negative opinions about it online.
These positive reactions have been overpowered by the negative backlash, but constructive criticism is always a good thing, especially when it comes to improving a video game. Hopefully, Riot Games will take the negative opinions into consideration if it ever does decide to revamp the map and make it better.
That being said, fans should be happy to know that the developer previously confirmed that two new maps will be coming to Valorant. Game Director Joe Ziegler previously said in an interview that “getting to seven is a good starting point.”
We don’t know when these will be released, but we hope that it will be soon. Hopefully, the arrival of these maps will soothe the Icebox naysayers, at least for a while.