Icebox will be withdrawn in April 2023

In October 2020, Riot Games unveiled its new Valorant map. Entitled Icebox, the latter invited players to a large terrain clad in snow and ice. With containers and cranes, the map offered a new setting never before seen in the FPS.

For several months, Icebox remained unchanged, but - like many maps - it eventually underwent several changes. The 4.04 patch changed the middle ramp on the defenders' side, various angles and the B site. The slight change in the orientation of the famous yellow container did it a world of good, to say the least.

Since then, no further changes have been made. However, this may change in the near future. Very recently, the official Twitter accounts of Valorant revealed the withdrawal of Icebox in April, this will be the case when patch 6.08 is available. According to the current patch schedule, Icebox will be removed from the map pool on 25th April, and for an indefinite period of time. As specified, this withdrawal concerns only the Competitive and Unrated modes; the map will remain accessible in the other modes of Valorant.

This is not the first time the developers have decided to remove maps. And every time this decision has been taken in the past, it was with the aim of modifying them, as was the case with Split. Even more recently, the development teams chose to release Bind and Breeze, and here again changes are expected. As for Bind, the possible changes have already been unveiled. These will come into effect when Icebox is withdrawn at the beginning of Act 3.

It is therefore easy to expect that Icebox will be modified again before it makes its return. As we did with Split, although no information has been released yet, we can envisage some of the changes.

Since one of the most critical parts of the map is the Middle Zone, it is likely that the designers will want to rework it. For example, we could see a stack of radianite boxes to offer additional protection to attackers who rush into this deadly corridor.

On the Defense side, it could be interesting to have direct access from the ramp to the kitchen, without being forced to walk around and take the stairs. This would make the Kitchen area more interesting to play. As there is usually one Kitchen player and one Ramp player, this would give teams the opportunity to prepare other defensive strategies and position a second player on site B for example.

We could also dream of seeing a new connection between sites A and B, it would take the form of a subterranean, and, why not, connect different points on the map. Who knows...?