Valorant's new defender-centred map Fracture has arrived
Attackers can come at you from either side, how stressful
Valorant has a new map now, its name is Fracture, and it scares me. Unlike any of the other Valo maps in Riot's tactical FPS, Fracture is designed so the defending team starts in the middle, and attackers can come at you from either side - and they can slide under the map on cool ropes too! On top of that, there are a few tweaks to character's abilities and more in the game's latest act.
So, first things first: Fracture is quite pretty. It's no colourful, sunny beach like Breeze, but it does have two distinct biomes (a jungle-y bit and a desert-y bit) that at least make it more interesting to look at than the game's other maps.
The defending team spawns in-between those two biomes, and there's a spike site in each for them to protect. The map is a H-like shape, and attackers can use underground ziplines during the buy phase to choose which side to attack from.
It sounds pretty attacker-sided, but there are definitely some tricksy routes for defenders to go down to retake a site. I'm interested in seeing how players adapt to this one. I do feel sorry for Cypher players, though. There are so many entrances to each site, his two little Trapwires aren't going to be of much use.
Fracture is now in rotation in all the casual Valorant game modes (Unrated, Deathmatch, Replication, and Spike Rush), plus there's a Fracture-only queue so folks can play it as much as they want while it's new. The devs say the map will enter competitive rotation in two weeks, so you have plenty of time to practice.
As for new changes elsewhere in the game, patch 3.05 has been rather kind to all the agents, with no major buffs or nerfs to report. The main tweak is that Breach, Sova and Brimstone's damage dealing abilities will now affect abilities you can shoot at; like Killjoy's Alarm Bot and Nanoswarm grenades, Cypher's Trapwires, and more.
Raze gets a little nerf with her Boom Bot's damage being reduced (and the price of the ability has been reduced too). Killjoy's turret has been tweaked a little as well - previously it reduced enemy movement speed by 72.5%, but now they'll only be slowed by 29.5%.
All of this is part of Valorant Episode 3 Act 2, which arrived last night along with a new battle pass filled with shiny new gun skins.