Maps

## Additional Pages

 **Lore Wiki Article**

Each match of *VALORANT* takes place on a **map**. Four maps were available at launch, and a six-month cycle is expected for the release of new maps. There are currently thirteen playable maps in *VALORANT* overall, with an additional one for practice and training new players.

## List of Maps

**A downloadable folder containing all the map theme audio files can be found here.**

### Standard

*For current map rotation, see this section for more information.*
Standard play maps feature a spawn area for each team, barriers that limit accessible areas during the Buy Phase for Plant/Defuse game modes, and objective sites where the spike is to be planted. These maps are also for Deathmatch-class modes, such as Escalation and Deathmatch.

### Team Deathmatch

Team Deathmatch is played on maps created specifically for the mode. Though most of their designs reflect the appearance of other standard maps, they are not based on physical locations (hence the missing coordinates), instead being simulated environments created by Max Bot as part of his revenge program against the agents of the VALORANT Protocol. Max Bot himself is also used as the game mode's announcer and has a visible presence in the maps' spawn rooms.

## Map rotations

Map rotations are used in all game modes that use any of the Standard maps, keeping seven maps in the pool at once and disabling all other maps from appearing in these specific game modes. Regardless of rotation status however, all maps are still available to be used in custom games. Factors that can influence which maps are rotated out of the pool include player sentiment, time since release, planned updates, and the strategic variance of current and newly-released maps.

The map rotation was introduced in Episode 05 with the arrival of *VALORANT'*s eighth map, Pearl. Keeping the map pool limited to seven was seen as the sweet spot in order to ensure there is enough variety whilst not overwhelming players with having to learn and understand too many maps at once, and also allowing them to go deeper on those that are in the pool. A seven-map pool is also ideal for pro play, allowing both Bo3 and Bo5 formats to give both teams an equal number of bans without needing to play the same map twice in a series. On release, the map rotation was only utilized by Unrated and Competitive until this was expanded with the arrival of Episode 08 to include all game modes utilizing Standard maps.

### History

**Note: Whilst pro play is also affected by these map rotations, changes to the map pool may only come into effect for the scene at later dates in order to give teams enough time to adjust to changes.**

## Map Coordinates

Each map in *VALORANT* has a real-life location, with its coordinates shown on the loading screen when entering a game on that map. The coordinates are listed as latitude and longitude using degrees, minutes, and seconds. The seconds values are shown as letters instead, with each letter representing a digit:

The real-life locations given by these coordinates are shown here:

***Maps are not currently compatible with mobile view. To see the map and interact with its markers, switch to desktop view.***

Loading map...{"minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"mappingservice":"leaflet","width":"auto","height":"500px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":true,"static":false,"zoom":false,"defzoom":14,"layers":["OpenStreetMap"],"image layers":[],"overlays":[],"resizable":true,"fullscreen":true,"scrollwheelzoom":true,"cluster":true,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clustermaxradius":5,"clusterspiderfy":true,"geojson":"","clicktarget":"","imageLayers":[],"locations":[{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Ascent\" title=\"Ascent\"\u003EAscent\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Alpha Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Ascent\n","link":"","lat":45.4375,"lon":12.335833,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Range\" title=\"Range\"\u003ERange\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Alpha Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Range\n","link":"","lat":45.448611,"lon":12.335833,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Bind\" title=\"Bind\"\u003EBind\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Alpha Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Bind\n","link":"","lat":34.033333,"lon":-6.85,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Breeze\" title=\"Breeze\"\u003EBreeze\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Alpha Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Breeze\n","link":"","lat":26.185,"lon":-71.175278,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Haven\" title=\"Haven\"\u003EHaven\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Alpha Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Haven\n","link":"","lat":27.466667,"lon":89.641667,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Icebox\" title=\"Icebox\"\u003EIcebox\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Alpha Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Icebox\n","link":"","lat":76.733333,"lon":149.5,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Split\" title=\"Split\"\u003ESplit\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Alpha Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Split\n","link":"","lat":35.689722,"lon":139.692222,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Fracture\" title=\"Fracture\"\u003EFracture\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Alpha Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Fracture\n","link":"","lat":35.805,"lon":-106.138611,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Pearl\" title=\"Pearl\"\u003EPearl\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Omega Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Pearl\n","link":"","lat":38.711944,"lon":-9.140833,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Lotus\" title=\"Lotus\"\u003ELotus\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Omega Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Lotus\n","link":"","lat":14.1175,"lon":74.889167,"icon":""},{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/Sunset\" title=\"Sunset\"\u003ESunset\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E\u003C/b\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(Alpha Earth)\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Sunset\n","link":"","lat":34.033889,"lon":-118.204444,"icon":""}],"imageoverlays":null}
## Determining map selection

*VALORANT* uses a deterministic map system in order to increase the variety of maps players will encounter and vastly reduce the possibility of playing on the same map multiple times in a row. Once 10 players have been selected for a match, the system looks at all maps those players have played over the last 5 maps for the mode they have queued into. Any maps that a player has played twice in the past 5 maps are removed, before the system then picks the least played map from those remaining. If all maps have been removed due to the “Twice Played” rule, then this restriction will be ignored and the least played out of all the maps will be picked instead.

### Previous system iterations

From launch, *VALORANT* used a completely random map selection system that gave all maps an equal chance of being selected. For the duration of this system there were only 4 maps available (Icebox was not released until 1.10), meaning each map had a 25% chance of being selected with no other factors taken into account. The small map pool and equal chance meant streaks of the same map were very common, resulting in 72% of players getting the same map multiple times over the course of 5 games, 26% of which would get a map streak for 3-5 of those games.

Patch 1.08 changed this system to be pseudo-random instead. This system would favored maps that were, on aggregate, not seen by the 10 players selected for a match, heavily punishing maps that any player had gotten a recent streak of. With the map pool still at only 4 with the introduction of this update, many players would still get map streaks at first, but as more maps were added to the pool the chances of these streaks got much lower. Once Fracture (*VALORANT'*s 7th map) was released, only 28% of players were getting the same map multiple times over the course of 5 games, with only 3% of which getting a map streak for 3-5 of those games.

Despite these improvements, many players felt that map streaks were still too common using the pseudo-random system. Though it heavily punished maps recently played by the 10 selected players, there was still a small chance of that map being selected anyway. In order to remove the chances of these maps appearing instead, the pseudo-random system was replaced with the current deterministic system in 4.04. Whilst it's not possible to completely prevent map streaks using the deterministic system, it was still able to further reduce the chances of players getting a map streak for 3+ games.

## References

1. ↑ Inven Global, Interview with the developers - Part 2: "Valorant has prepared to deal with hacks from the very beginning."
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 VALORANT Map Pool Changes
3. ↑ Solving the meaning of the map coordinates' letters
4. ↑ Patch 4.04
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 VALORANT Systems Health Series - Map Diversity