After a couple of weeks alone in its own playlist, Breeze is joining the map list for the ranked and unrated queues in VALORANT today.
Breeze made its debut at the end of April as the defining feature of VALORANT’s Patch 2.08. Rather than force players to have to learn the map on the fly in normal queues, Riot opted to put Breeze in its own unrated playlist for players to play and practice on. Breeze was still available in VALORANT’s other game modes: Deathmatch, Spike Rush, Escalation, and in custom games.
But now, the training wheels are off and players should expect to see Breeze in queues for either unrated or ranked. The tropical-themed island map is a step in a new direction for VALORANT maps, with wide-open bombsites and long sightlines, favoring agents that can gather information and force enemies out of corners.
Originally, Breeze was scheduled to make its competitive debut at the esports level at the upcoming Masters Two Reykjavik, the first international LAN of the fledgling VALORANT esports scene. But Riot’s competitive team thought better than to make the world’s best teams scramble to come up with new strats in just a couple of weeks and took it out of the Reykjavik pool.
The Breeze-only playlist has been removed and replaced with the newest game mode introduced in Patch 2.09, Replication, which sees teams all play the same agent in a best-of-nine-rounds match. Escalation has also been removed.
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