What Fracture means for VALORANT’s lore

VALORANT’s newest map Fracture brings with it a host of lore implications and discussions as it furthers the story in the background of the game. The map deals with elements of the two realities in VALORANT, how they may interact and even features VALORANT’s first interactable story elements.

Here is everything Fracture has added to the lore of VALORANT.

Two Deadeye’s caused the fracture

In the trailer for the new map, a French-accented voice, talks about noble sacrifices over the footage of a radianite-powered bullet colliding with another bullet in the generator at the center of the new map. Presumably this is Deadshot, the game’s potential next character

“Incredible, that something so small can create such… Opportunity,” the voice said. “There efforts were noble, sacrifices must be made.”

The, presumably, upcoming agent also left behind clues on the map for this theory. Players can find two sets of sniper rifles, briefcases, phones and scouting lens on opposite side of the map, just outside the playable zones. These spots also matchup with the theory, as both point directly towards the map’s generator.

We still don’t know his motivations, but the next cinematic may reveal more.

There are two Kingdoms

The generator destruction is implied to have fracture the landscape, turning one side of the map into a lush green space and the other into a more aired and dusty location. The two sides also have different signs and iconography to distinguish themselves. According to different voice lines heard around the map, the two sides are actually two variations on the mega-corporation at the center of VALORATNT’s world, Kingdom. One side is the Omega side, the other is Alpha, distinguished by the different logos and color scheme.

These voice lines were first discovered by VALORANT lore enthusiast Cynprel.

The voice lines, and warnings signs around the map, also imply that the two companies are not exactly friendly. They prohibit “fraternization” with employees of their mirrored company and have signs warning of interaction with either the omega, or alpha, versions of Kingdom.

The three interactive narrative elements

While their are more subtle hints towards certain elements of VALORANT’s lore, like an announcer telling all employees to report if they have seen their other-world counterpart, the more overt lore elements are in the integrative elements. There are three orbs around the map that players can interact with. One is in Defender’s spawn, one is in Attacker’s spawn and the final orb is on Attacker’s bridge.

The two interactive orbs in the respective spawns reveal two email between an employee for the omega and alpha version of Kingdom. Players can interact with the items during the Buy Phase.

The one above can be found in Defender’s spawn and reminds the employee, Oran McEneff to get ready for his meeting with his omega Kingdom partner, Ruben Pontes, and to adhere to the aforementioned guidelines.

The next message is an email sent to Pontes by McEneff asking him to double check his math on the Radian Collider and to walkthrough the facility together. These two emails mean little now, as they reveal nothing more about the lore of the game other than that the two Kingdoms allow cross dimensional projects.

The final interactable object is a keycard for Paul Delmann on Attacker’s bridge. Delmann is an employee first introduced in Icebox. His employee of the month award can be found in the area known as “kitchen.”

The keycard seems to imply that Delmann has traveled to Fracture from Icebox. This is even made more possible by a voice line by an announcer in a certain part of the map that says their is a package for Delmann from Icebox.

Now these elements may seem inconsequential, but Riot Games has confirmed that these will be updated on a per-patch basis. So these emails may change as time goes on to give more context into how the two companies operate and how the map ended up split in two. Either way, VALORANT’s lore related to Fracture has not been figured out just yet.