Posted by Steve
Friday, April 30, 2021 5:48 PM
(Most maps contain little information, the more juicy stuff comes after Split.)
The Range: the place where Valorant train, following their captain Brimstone. It's located near Venice and doesn't contain much more info than the fact that it's a Valorant controlled storage space and possibly even their base. Above it, a rift is opened which seems to show another dimension's Range.
Ascent: Venice, Italy. It was ripped from earth after Jett Earth 67 planted a spike-looking device. We know that our Jett complains about how people blame her for what happened.
We also know that Kingdom advertises this kind of floating islands, like some kind of tourist attraction. This is possibly confirmed by the presence in mid of a kingdom building where "tickets" are sold.
Not much more can be found on the map lore-wise.
Haven: located in Thimphu, Bhutan, we know that much like Ascent, Haven has undergone some kind of massive geological mutation, probably because of radianite. Just like Ascent, Haven doesn't offer much more in terms of lore. We know that B and C sites are connected to radianite storage systems and that Kingdom organizes "retreats" to Haven for either their employees or their leaders. Hence the name, Haven.
Because there's a radianite crate on top of the weird rock formation, I'm lead to believe that a radianite crate may have somehow fallen off a cargo helicopter that was transporting crates to be stored in B site, and reacted poorly upon impact causing that phenomenon.
Split: Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Split is unique in that it's set in the middle of a lively city. Kingdom's presence and disruption is more subtle than on the other maps, and it's indicated by how the map is Split in a very poor area (B) and the rich, kingdom controlled area (A). Here websee that Kingdom has all kinds of monopoly: not only are they leaders in radianite exports, they also possess coffee shops and probably even stations. The most interesting part of the map is most definitely the 3km tall building located 3km from the map. If you were wondering, the massive light-emitting window is large about 150 meters. This is thought to be Kingdom's headquarters because if the design. (not related but I'm fascinated by the place and I really hope someday we can get a map that's inside that building. It would be so cool and maybe we could get to see Split from far away.)
Bind: located off the coast of Rabat, Morocco. We know Bind is Cypher's hometown, and that Kingdom is tearing it apart for some reason. It's possible that there may be raw radianite under the city, because of Cypher's "they are sucking my city dry" voiceline. This is all just speculation though, and what we know for sure js that Kingdom has built a massive radianite refinery here (CT). On A site window, you can see a flow of radianite being processed. This was only kind if interesting until very recently: at launch, the radianite flow formed an ethereal ult-orb-looking sphere in the middle, but now it seems to have condensated into a grey radianite crystal just like the one that was distributed as a free buddy in the first battlepass.
It seems to have been changed in one of the last patches.
B site elbow contains some offices and a small exhibit showing the Radianite refinement process. There's also a Haven-like storage system under the site.
On the city walls, you can find posters that incite to resistance against Kingdom.
Icebox: found on Bennett Island, Sakha, Russia, Icebox is where the things get really interesting. There is a ton of content to unpack here:
structure: Icebox is split in three very different places: a Container Port (B site, T side) to which and frim which set sail large cargo ships. The port has military-level surveillance, with a control tower near it, and is probably used to gather the resources needed by the nearby bulilding, the
Kingdom laboratory. On top of the hill and insude the mountain, a heavily protected Radianite storage is located. A site is home to several laboratories of some kind, that seem to make very intensive use if radianite. But what kind of experiments happen in there? We know that when Icebox came out, the laboratory window on A site was intact. Inside the lab, you could see seven capsules. The one in the center was home to a samurai. Ever since Yoru was released, though, the window has been broken and a rift comes out of the samurai's face and opens into the sky.
We do not know what is in the other six capsules, and the name of the Bloodline card leads us to think that Yoru may not actually be the samurai. The look of those capsules reminds me a lot of the capsules that Eggnan used when trying to clone Shadow and the concept of bloodline reminds me of how Clone Troopers in Star Wars seem to refer to Jango Fett as their father. So my cultural background makes me think Kingdom may have tried to clone the samurai and that's what was in the other capsules. But this is all speculation.
Out of B site, a red ship can be seen being dismantled. I remember reading that that ship may be the place where the samurai's body and armor were found, but I don't know enough about Japanese historical ships to be able to tell if this is or isn't true.
What is unclear to me is why Valorant would want to protect the icebox terminal if that's indeed Valorant.
And finally,
Breeze: off the coast of the Bahamas and in the Atlantic Ocean, Breeze is a very odd location and because of it restored my lost interest for Valorant lore.
The most obvious thing to point out is the KNG Meridian, the "lost at sea" cargo ship that can be seen from CT. The ship might seem irrelevant, but if your curiosity was sparked by the odd "lighthouse" inside the castle on B, you probably noticed the big tube that comes out of it and connects to the roof. If you follow the tube in Ghost Mode, you'll see that it cintains a weird blue fluid, and that it connects the lighthouse to the wreckage if the KNG Meridian. Going back to the lighthouse and going underground, you'll see that the lighthouse is used to transform the blue fluid into the bright green substance that's inside the radianite crates. (so either the fluid is radianite or it's used to process it). Kingdom likely didn't want the ship's precious cargo to go ti waste.
The second most important thing about Vreeze is the mine on T side A.
You probably noticed the gorgeous crystal cave. If you ventured in elblw, you probably noticed an office. Inside the office a desk is located, on top of which are two stones that look like the radianite crystal I mentioned in the Bind section. You can also spot a "Radianite Mine Map", which claims to be on its 7th version, updated March 16. One of the interesting things about it is that one of the impirtant places marked om the map is the big villa that can also be seen from CT. It appears that the map is called "Wolf* mansion", where the asterisk indicates that the word "wolf" is decentered, which may mean that there's supposed to be another letter (e.g. Wolfs) which somehow got deleted.
But perhaps the most interesting thing are the other three places marjed on the map: 'teleporter', 'machine shop' and 'base armpry vault'.
I'm lead to think that the 'base armory vault' may be the lighthouse and castle on B site, but there doesn't seem to be a teleporter on Breeze, nor can I seem to be able to find a building with the same design as the map icon for it. If someone has any theory on the 'teleporter' or 'machine shop' locations, I'm all here.
So, to summarize:
Range: Valorant's base.
Ascent: Kingdom's attempt at making floating islands a tourist location.
Haven: A safe place for Kingdom employees or leaders. Hosts a Radianite deposit.
Split: has a view on Kingdom HQ.
Bind: Radianite refinery.
Icebox: a laboratory which requires an incredible amount of radianite. May also be used as a deposit for unrelated kingdom resources.
Breeze: home to the wreckage of the KNG Meridian and the mysterious Wolf* mansion. A radianite mine is also located there. It's unclear how lucky kingdom had to be for their ship to crash onto an island that was so rich in radianite. It's also unclear if the mining operation came first, or the wreck.
P.S.: if someone thinks I made a mistake or wants to fill some of the blanks I will be happy to hear about it.
References
- https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/n1cruf/a_brief_description_of_currently_released_maps/
- https://reddit.com/n1cruf
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