New VALORANT 10.08 Map Rotation Has People Divided – Fracture Out, Sunset In

RIOT Games have announced a bit of a change to the map rotation in the upcoming VALORANT patch 10.08. Fracture is out, Sunset is in, and opinions are divided. Why though?

We’re fresh off a map rotation already

Coming in with the Waylay Patch and the start of Stage 1, we have already had new maps rotating in recently. 10.04 saw Abyss and Bind removed from the map rotation and brought back Icebox and Ascent. There are some that probably would be looking at the removal of Fracture and asking why not Icebox instead but you can’t just kick Icebox every time, its only been back a few weeks!

Fracture has been a pretty entertaining map in the pro scene for a while. It’s a hugely entertaining map for Neon and Cypher fans for very different reasons. Despite Neon hits, she’s still making great use of the open space and the mess of angles on A. Whereas B site is a constant scrap for Heaven as the box plant has so many different looks on how to play the post plant. We’ve even recently seen a post plant defence from under the spike.

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— VALORANT Esports EMEA (@valesports_emea) March 28, 2025

With Fracture out and sights set on LA once again for Sunset, there are definitely winners and losers of the patch.

Pour one out for your Coaches

Setting aside the teams that will be potentially happy or sad to see Fracture go and Sunset coming in, it’s got to be a rough time for coaches. For the teams that had their Kick Off run short, and had that extra time for Masters Bangkok to grind for Stage 1, a lot of that practice will have become null and void with the introduction of Waylay and the rotation of 2 maps.

Now, with less than a month until the next rotation, this mid season change could have a pretty heavy impact on some of the standings for the teams. Liquid will likely not be looking forward to losing one of their most stable map picks, whereas G2’s heavy execute, cerebral approach to VALORANT is going to look good on any 3 lane map. The more places you can send Jaw to pinch, pull and poke, the better.

The 10.08 map rotation being mid season is certainly an interesting look that has a lot of people confused as to why it is happening when it is. But, with the newest agent being a little underwhelming in the map pool in terms of results, it could be a good chance for her to shine.

Tejo’s impact on Fracture

One of the big parts of what might have had Fracture out for a look at during the 10.08 map rotation is how well Tejo plays on the map. The agent is doing what RIOT intended, with no lineups needed to get damaging utility into place, heaven control for Fracture has kind of 180’d. What used to be a stomping ground for aim and some pivotal duels to swing a post-plant in your favour now sometimes feels like putting fish in a barrel with the different variations of utility placement to flush out a defender.

Coupled with additional utility onto the site entrance, we’ve seen a lot of players caught as sitting ducks for playing what was such an important point on B site prior to Tejo. With Vyse, Tejo starting to see widespread adoption, and the sprinkling in of more Deadlock usage, its not super surprising that Fracture is going to be given a breather for now. I’ll be looking forward to seeing what teams do with the new rotation. Coaches are going to have their work cut out for them.