Riot Games announced another map rotation is coming to Valorant in a few months, and pros are shocked Ascent is somehow not leaving the pool.
Riot rotates maps in and out of the competitive pool to keep the game fresh and to work on the FPS arenas in the background. Most maps in the game have been taken out and refreshed in some way throughout the game’s lifespan.
That is, except for Ascent.
Ascent is one of the earliest maps to join the game, having been added when Valorant exited its beta period on June 2, 2020. It is a staple at the competitive level and hasn’t seen any major changes by the developer since its addition over four years ago.
Valorant pros were shocked to see Ascent had survived yet another rotation, with Icebox and Lotus leaving the pool instead, as many find the map stale and in need of a refresh.
“Split back for some reason instead of Fracture, Ascent survives another map rotation while consistently having the most boring meta (OG comp or double senti Deadlock Cypher),” DarkZero Esports player Matthew ‘Wedid’ Suchan said on social media.
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Im beginning to think ascent is just hard coded into the game… maybe it can’t be removed???? https://t.co/9IsW8Fg26b pic.twitter.com/uTnbaave3A
— Sean Gares (@seangares) July 30, 2024
Sean Gares, former 100 Thieves Valorant coach and VCT analyst, pondered whether the map was somehow stuck in the game.
Most professional teams run on Ascent with an agent composition consisting of Omen, Sova, Jett, KAY/O, and their Sentinel of choice. Some teams might occasionally swap out one agent for another, but this lineup of characters has been consistent across multiple years.
“The last remaining logical conclusion is that Riot actually wants us to hate Ascent. The whole point of a map rotation is to keep things fresh and exciting, not leave the quantifiably stalest map in the game in rotation for 3 years,” Fnatic coach Martin ‘Anderzz’ Schelasin said in a reply to the news.
Whether Riot will someday remove the map remains to be seen. Unlike other maps like Icebox or Breeze, which have obvious issues, Ascent is a consistent performer across new agent releases and patches.
Its only issue is that it is unexciting, and that doesn’t seem like a big enough flaw for Riot to remove the map and revamp it.