As the new year approaches, there will also be a new Valorant map rotation, and last year’s axed maps will return. After being removed several months ago, Riot Games has announced that Split will be reintroduced to the game’s map pool.
Split was removed from Valorant’s ranked and unranked modes on June 16, 2022, before Season 5 Act 3 was even revealed, and has not appeared since. Riot Games cited many factors for the removal, such as balancing issues and the past and future planned updates. After that day, Split was removed from the pool, and fans didn’t know when it was coming back.
Split will return in patch 6.0 with several updates in response to fan feedback. Level designer Joe ‘Pearl Hogbash’ Lansford said that many fans wanted it back and that it made sense with the other shifts in the pool. As such, the development team looks forward to seeing how everyone play’s the map with all the new agents and meta-shifts since Split left the rotation. Although the news of the map’s return is excellent, Riot didn’t clarify what was changed, stating that they’ll detail the new additions once the patch notes for patch 6.0 are live.
However, with Split’s return, the development team has also decided to remove two maps, as both Bind and Breeze will be disabled in both solos and ranked queues. For Breeze, Riot stated that this map has room for improvement in agents and team composition variety, as well as some opportunities to simplify the space.
As for Bind, the reason for the removal was strategic diversity. Riot said they’d like to open up more gameplay around teleports and potentially rethink how teams execute and defend against executions on both sides. The studio also stated that, like Split, these maps aren’t going away forever, but there’s no release date.
