Volcano, an ex-CSGO pro and the map designer in VALORANT, finally responded to the community regarding map design flaws.
All this began right after a YouTuber, exaltedjoss27, made a video criticizing the map design of VALORANT. In that video, he talked about how Riot avoided taking too much risk, and there are just too many corners in the maps. This, along with a narrow field of view, the community complained about how claustrophobic the map actually feels.
VALORANT map design flaws
Just right after the community addressed these complaints to Volcano regarding the maps for being too congested, he replied, “there is a reason for it.” It seems Riot made a conscious decision to give maps in VALORANT more corners to check than CSGO.
Volcano explained live on Twitch how there was a simple version of those maps where there were fewer corners to check. Since there were just too many recon abilities, smokes, etc, in the game, it wasn’t a good fit for VALORANT. Early in the development cycle, it was clear to the map designers at Riot that CSGO-like map design wouldn’t actually fare well in VALORANT.
Volcano on the criticism regarding maps
With so many abilities that help you track down your opponents, as well as different types of smokes, stuns, etc, in the game, it was clear that having more corners would actually help more experienced players in the long run. While the maps in VALORANT would actually require more playtime from players to be somewhat knowledgeable with all the corners, it would actually give players more options to play around. Thus, it should create more dynamic engagements between players.
Devs at Riot Games are always looking for this kind of feedback from the community regarding potential map design flaws. We might see some rework to the maps before the actual release of the game.
