Lotus is a map set in India with some amazing environments.
Riot Games has revealed a new map for Valorant called Lotus, which is set in India and features three spike sites as well as some other brand-new mechanics.
Like most of the other Valorant maps, Lotus introduces some new ideas with the two most prominent being rotating doors and a destructible door/wall. There’s also a silent drop on the map, meaning you can get around without making too much noise.
“We wanted to make another three site map and show that this is more of a format we’ll keep using than just a single map,” said Joe Lansford, level designer on Valorant. “Additionally, we aimed to make a map with high flexibility and movement for both teams. There are several traditional Indian architectural elements and locations that we took inspiration from. Stepwells, Rock-Cut architecture and the Dravidian style. Badami Cave Temples, Ellora Caves and Rani Ki Vav to name a few.”
This is the second map in Valorant to feature three spike sites, with the other being Haven, one of the launch maps that has always been somewhat divisive. With three sites the defending team obviously has to split a bit more, but for the attackers, there is often less room to move around the map. It remains to be seen if this will carry over to Lotus or if the design team has managed to change it substantially.
The map, which is due to release on January 10, is set in Omega Earth’s India, specifically the Western Ghats. The design is inspired by traditional Indian stepwells and rock-cut Dravidian architecture, and also features a few visual secrets that lore fans will need to look out for.
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Using India as a map location has long been rumoured for Valorant, but initially this map had a very different concept, with the team revealing it was originally going to be set in space, before they realised the systems they wanted to implement didn’t really work.
“When designing Lotus, I was originally envisioning a space station and had an airlock mechanic that shut down large areas of the map,” said Lansford. “Turned out to just not be that fun, so we scrapped the idea and moved in the direction we have today.”
Lotus will be launching alongside the massive 6.00 update to Valorant which kicks off the start of Episode Six. Along with the new map comes a load of balance changes, a new battle pass and of course some new cosmetics.
