‘Fracture’ is the coolest idea for an FPS map in years

VALORANT has taken a lot of ideas from CS:GO. It’s true. They’ll admit it themselves – but one thing they’ve become good at in their own right is creativity, and challenging the norms of FPS games.

CSGO will recycle the same maps, add a new box and everyone goes mad. Hell, they switched the doors around on Dust 2 and people tried to pretend it made the map anything more than completely unplayable.

I digress.

Riot is rethinking how it designs maps, with a little help from Gandalf. https://t.co/3VjMRuyFnf

— PC Gamer (@pcgamer) September 1, 2021

For those of you who don’t spend all of your time online or in my app, you should. At least in my app. You might have missed why this new is so cool – and it’s because the ‘gimmick’ of this map is that defenders spawn in the middle, and the attackers spawn either side of them. The map is essentially a big H shape, and zipwires connect the two attacker spawns underneath the map.

First off, how gangster would you feel zipwiring under the map like some sort of James Bond stunt double?

Secondly, what a genius idea. Why on earth were we messing around with just one spawn each? Defenders get split on anyway, why not make it so you’re basically fighting off a horde from multiple zones?

It really increases the feeling of being backs-to-the-wall fighting off zombies with your mates that we all got into FPS games for. Maybe that’s just me.

It might suck, but it’s still cool

Given how horrendous Breeze is, my hopes are still somewhat dimmed. Riot have shown a propensity to make some pretty horrible maps, and Fracture might yet be sh*t.

But that doesn’t even matter – their creativity should be applauded. Taking the best elements of CSGO and improving them was exactly what I wanted from VALORANT, and the maps in CSGO were stale. Spawning in the middle of the map with attackers coming in from each angle is just such a damn cool idea, and I’m pretty annoyed that my invitation to the creator early access got ‘lost in the sauce’.

Grab some mates, grab a beer and get ready to experience Gears of War Horde mode, except without the horrifically clunky movement system. Distinct lack of chainsaws, too, Riot Games. We better get a chainsaw on the next Agent.

That’s another article, though.

This is my new Agent idea. Via GettyImages