Riot will be hosting a live stream on January 11, 10 AM PST to reveal more on Episode 2, changes to competitive play, their design philosophies, the new agent Yoru, gun skins, esports, and more. However, there is an interesting bit in the teaser image in the tweet that suggests the next map might be based in Tokyo, Japan.
Breaking Down the Teaser Image Posted by Riot
The new background shown off in the image is not a part of Valorant's existing maps.Image Credit: Riot Games
Due to delays in Episode 2’s release, we received Icebox early. The map was originally set to be a part of Episode 2 and it is unlikely that we will receive a new map with the upcoming patch that will launch Yoru as the game’s new agent. The team has gone on record and mentioned that they want to ramp up how often we receive new maps because many players are unhappy with how few maps we have to play around with and the developers recognize this as a problem as well.
The Icebox map is located in Russia according to the lore and the new agent Yoru travels to the map to retrieve armor. It is unknown if Yoru is a time traveler who traverses time to retrieve the Japanese armor or if he is a descendant of the samurai. Most of the hints thrown around in-game suggest that Yoru is indeed a time traveler. The upcoming content drop should release sometime next week, a day or two after the upcoming Livestream.
After the Japan cityscape was discovered within the teaser image, most players in online forums dismissed the idea of a new map releasing any time before Episode 3. With Riot planning a release schedule of one map per episode, the Japan map maybe 6 months away from release unless the team speeds things up and pushes out more maps and agents for 2021.
If you want to catch the live stream that will showcase the upcoming update you can head to – www.twitch.tv/VALORANT on January 11 at 10 AM PST. The stream will be hosted by Fionn on Fire alongside members of the Valorant dev team and they will talk about the new agent, break down the competitive design, upcoming content, cosmetics and esports. We can also expect news on the Valorant Champions Tour which will be an international tournament featuring the best teams in the world competing against each other at the global year-long event.
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