Riot Games added Breeze back into the Valorant map pool in the middle of 2023 with a ton of new updates, and after seeing player behavior for a few months, have reverted a massive change.
Breeze was added back to Valorant in Episode 7 Act 2 with many new updates after some time away from the map rotation. Riot consolidated the middle of the map to make it more straightforward and took away certain lanes that were not useful for attackers and defenders but still needed to be guarded.
Fans have been mixed so far on the changes as some think the map is just fine now, and others think it has lost some of its charm.
Riot announced a slight change to the map on January 19, saying that in Valorant Patch 8.01 the developer will be reintroducing the A Halls section that was blocked off in the update.
Valorant players confused over Breeze change
Riot said that it felt like the closed area was “too restrictive” when introduced along with the rest of the changes it made to Breeze.
In the Breeze update, Riot sectioned off A Halls to make it only a window instead of a straight lane to the Attack and Defender spawns. So far, players seem mixed on the change, but everyone seems confused about it.
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“This is like taking a clown nose back off of the clown. You can still very plainly see there’s a clown,” one social media user said.
Those in favor of the change said that they wanted to see lurking come back as a viable strategy on the map, as before the change, Defenders or Attackers would send a late rotating player through the lane to catch the enemy off guard.
However, those who liked A Halls boarded up are not fans of having yet another lane on the long-range map.
“Oh good. I was worried they might keep the best change,” said pro Valorant player Taylor “drone” Johnson.
Valorant players will have to get used to the new lane on the map as it will be added in just in time for the start of the Premier and esports season.