Riot dev teases “new mechanic” coming with Valorant’s next map

Joe Lansford, Riot Games’ lead map designer working on Valorant, has teased that the shooter’s new map will boast a previously unseen “mechanic” during a Red Bull Home Ground interview.

Riot Games’ debut FPS – Valorant, launched in April 2020 with three maps available in the pool: Bind, Haven, and Split. Since then, the number of maps has grown steadily.

Any Valorant player, whether a newbie or a pro, knows that adding new maps is a delicate balancing act of implementing something fresh while not unbalancing the foundation of what makes the game so enjoyable to play.

Riot tease “new mechanic” coming in Valorant’s next map

When asked about the new map in an interview at the Red Bull Home Ground tournament, Riot Games developer Joe Lansford teased a “new mechanic”. He also said that it will be “similar” to an existing map, presumably in design or aesthetic.

“The next map, what can I say?” he smiled. “It’s gonna have a new mechanic. Erm, yeah, it’s not too crazy. It’s not teleporters. But there will be a new mechanic. It’s going to be similar to another map in the pool. That’s all [I can say].”

Unfortunately, Lansford did not delve any deeper into details, meaning fans were left to speculate on the exact nature of the “mechanic” and how it might compare to existing environments.

Some players on Reddit jokingly guessed what the new mechanic will be, with one suggesting “The Gulag”. Another theorized that there’ll be “a robot you need to push to the other teams spawn”.

Others were in less of a humorous mood, with one of the top-rated comments on Reddit: “Maybe the new mechanic is well designed sites?”

One thing is for certain, fans of the game have a lot of exciting content to look forwards to. Between the long-awaited return of Split into the map pool and the massive changes being brought by Patch 5.12, there is a slew of new content to consume.