Later this month, professional and casual VALORANT players alike will need to prepare themselves for the return of Bind to both unrated and competitive queues. At the same time, they’ll also be saying goodbye as another map will be getting the boot from the map pool when Patch 6.08 hits the live servers on Tuesday, April 25.
Riot Games has confirmed that Icebox will be removed from competitive and unrated queues when Bind is re-added to the mix, which garnered equal parts happiness and horror from the general player base.
Some Fnatic players, for example, were saddened to find out that the map they won the 2023 VCT LOCK//IN tournament on was being pulled, especially because the team has a relatively high 76 percent win rate when playing on Icebox, according to competitive stats aggregate Spike.GG. This, however, shouldn’t be all doom and gloom for the map’s various fans.
Since the map is being removed from the rotation, fans are now speculating on whether or not Riot will be dishing out a number of different updates to the layout of the map, like how the developers have updated Bind for its return to the map rotation. From little quality-of-life swaps to major adjustments, Icebox could be heading for a big makeover soon.
Related: Every change coming to VALORANT’s Bind
In the meantime, Bind was revamped with a plethora of changes to major locations, including the A teleporter exit, the A site triple box, and a whole slew of doors that have been widened for more sightlines onto the site itself. Players will get a chance to play with these new changes in other casual game modes in Patch 6.07, right before Bind’s official addition to the competitive and unrated map rotation.
