Players of the official VALORANT Updates account were asked to comment on the new Breeze map, which sparked an epic and fractured reaction from the community. Riot Games may find such feedback to be very useful since it indicates that the players’ experience and the game’s competitive balance are not, in fact, separated by map changes. The answer is probably the clearest showcase of the division and heated debate over map design that exists among VALORANT players.
A casual question from Riot was thrown in just like that: “What do you think about the new Breeze?” and the responses are quite liberally. They seem to have granted access to a very raw, unrefined, player chaos. The players who are most affected by the new mid lane are so mad that they are ready to virtually fight, while others are very nostalgic and would never give up the old version, and a few are just expressing their frustration through shouts since they cannot even get the map in their queue. Let’s indulge ourselves in this chaos, as it is a vibe on its own.
First of all, the reception is… completely polarized. Seragii gave a perfect example of it, saying that to him, “they really solved a lot of things with this version, old breeze was a pain, now it actually feels playable most games.” Goodness, that sounds like a massive win! Just like that, there are others, like Dizastrous_ and Hashim who gave the briefest “Much better than it was” and “improved a lot tbf.” This indicates that for a segment of the community, this update was a straight-up W. They have zeroed in on all the pain points and it no longer feels like a drag.
Next up is… oh boy, the other side is a riot. Like a whole faction has almost gone into mourning for the old Breeze. “Old breeze was so much better,” says Blahman124. Escape corroborates this with “New breeze is good but old breeze was far better than the new one.” Then there’s Saku Yue, who perhaps encapsulates the gamer imposter syndrome we all face every once in a while: “I Liked it more before, but im Low elo so my opinion Doesnt count.” You gotta be joking? Your opinion is as good as anyone else’s! It’s your game too!
While the specific complaints are somewhat random, they also happen to be what makes this whole situation that much more engaging. Some players claim the map is now “defender sided” because there have been alterations that allow defenders to hold angles more easily. Gracie has highlighted a particular flank issue: “It’s good besides the fact it’s very easy for the defender to flank not even a minute into the match when attackers are pushing b.” Ouch! That’s… super frustrating. On the contrary, smotty wants the mid lane to be WIDENED again, which is quite amusing, as Nereyd pointed out, that is exactly the case—everyone used to complain that mid was too wide! You can’t win with these kids!
And so we get to the point where nothing but rage is left. This is where the pace and energy of a human typing very fast on Twitter really shines through. Kiiro’s tirade is gorgeous: “I CANT FUCKING PLAY IT. 20 GAMES. ONE TIME I PLAYED ON BREEZE. I hate corrode i hate pearl i hate abyss i hate bind. Just give me my favorite map. But no, games said fuck you.” We’ve all experienced this at one time or another. That map rotation luck is a cruel mistress. Elimsforsure was even less artistic: “fuck yall remove this shit niggas.” And alexy, who made a posting in French, gave us a translated treasure: “I feel like breaking everything, get this map off me.” The emotions are REALLY strong.
Some people’s views are just totally outrageous. Renato Oliveira deemed it a “Free Fire player map! They ruined the map!” which is a term I have never heard before, but it’s okay! JOTAPESINJTW just called it “Shit for anyware,” which is a very nice mistake that summarizes it all. And Amrit downgraded the other maps, saying the new Breeze fix means “now the worst map is fracture and icebox.” The map hatred continues!
Nevertheless, the positive side is that the dark side of the story is still there. Some players cannot praise it enough. ItsLazyEzy termed it “Probably the best map in the game rn.” Marlin shared, “It’s actually quite difficult to get used to the map. But it’s still my favorite valorant map.” And DANYGEN commented about a pretty balanced view in the sense that he wants to see the old version sometimes but thinks this one is “really good for overall game” balance. The community for PlayStation and Xbox often has similar passionate debates.
