Riot Games reveals seventh VALORANT map, Fracture

The developer of VALORANT, Riot Games, today revealed the latest upcoming map, Fracture. 

The new colorful and vibrant map will feature a ‘H-shaped’ layout, with the Defenders spawn placed in the center of the map. The spawn is situated between a ‘visual split’ between both sides of the map. Underneath there are Ziplines for players to interact with and traverse the new land. 

The Attackers, however, start on both sides of the map, pinching the Defenders. Joe Lansford, the Level Designer behind Fracture at Riot Games, said “We really wanted to ask players to rethink some fundamental assumptions and give them unique problems to solve. For example, for whom is the neutral space really for?” 

There are two sites on the map, with A site distinguished by its desert, featuring rotting buildings in a desolate environment. While B Site features a colorful display of foliage taking over a science facility.

The theme of the map depicts a dual-biome setting at a top-secret facility, which ties into VALORANT’s lore. “We wanted to create a setting that would play a role in expanding players’ understanding of the conflict at play in VALORANT,” said David Nottingham, Creative Director at Riot Games. 

“After the Duality cinematic revealed to players the existence of a twin Earth, our aim was to give players a further peek into the conflict at stake between these two worlds. And in Fracture, we see that perhaps there are aspects of the conflict not as black and white as might initially appear,” he said. 

The map will also feature ‘first-time interactive narrative objects’ that will likely impact the map itself if players interact with them, the developer said. 

The Fracture map will be playable in VALORANT in the upcoming 3.05 patch, which will begin on Wednesday, Sept. 8. There’s also likely to be updates to Agents, bug fixes and more included in the patch.