Whenever Riot adds another map to the game, there comes a phase where everybody is stumbling through unknown hallways, getting killed by angles they didn’t even think possible, and accusing their teammates of rotating to spots they didn’t understand because the map was completely different. Summit, Valorant’s 13th official map coming June 24, is about to do all of those things to you – and this time, the map is part of the reason why.
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Summit takes place in a Radiant training academy located in the Chinese mountains – and while you’re tempted to breeze right past the lore at this point, it’s important to remember that this is where Sage trained before joining the Protocol. The developers have been dropping clues about this place through Sage’s Easter eggs for weeks now, and it gives a lot more meaning to this potentially generic China map.
However, it will be not aesthetics which are going to impact the gameplay of Valorant with the launch of Summit. There are three droppable walls which will appear in A site, B site, and Mid. If activated, these walls are going to be permanently dropped throughout the whole game – blocking certain sightlines and even more importantly, rotation paths. That is the key thing which, I believe, players are currently overlooking. Unlike all other maps available to choose from, Summit has something new for Valorant which adds a variable to the game. And that means that teams will have to make decisions and plays faster than usual.
Think about how it will work for defenders. Dropping wall in Mid to prevent rotation seems like a good idea, but only until your squad is split by that wall. And for the attacking squad, there is an opportunity to lock down site after the plant – preventing the enemy from taking back the site at all. If that is not OP and is actually genius – again, it depends upon which side of that wall you stand when the Spike is planted.
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The agent meta is going to take time to settle, but controllers and sentinels who can play around permanently altered geometry stand to gain the most here. Any agent whose value relies on a rotation that a wall can physically block is going to need a rethink.
Retake, another 3v3 game mode that is going to release together with Summit, is also something to look forward to. The spike is already planted and both teams have to play on opposite ends of the field in each round; the loadout is randomized. It is basically a plant simulator and when the map has walls which can seal out the defusal route, it is going to help learn the map quickly like nothing else.
I have not yet played Summit myself. No one except for Riot Games and its gang of content creators has, save for the show match at Masters London. The droppable wall system is one of the first times that I am unsure how to approach a round in Valorant and that is exactly what is making the map worthy of consideration.
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