Back in January, Riot Games announced that Episode 4 Act 2 of Valorant would break the mold. Players have become accustomed to a new Agent or map being added with every new Episode, but the dev team noted that they wanted to take the time to focus on other aspects of the game for a change. The 4.04 update is here, bringing with it more highly-requested and impactful changes for the devoted playerbase.
Yoru is getting a big rework in this patch, giving him more ways to mess with his opponents. Everything from his Dimensional Drift ultimate ability to his Fakeout decoy have been altered, making him a much more viable Agent overall.
Despite being at the top of the food chain, Astra is also seeing some changes in this patch. Players will notice that her abilities are a bit more effective now, though her cooldowns have been nerfed along with the number of stars she has. Wondering how bad the nerf is? Her Nebula ability cooldown has been increased from 14 seconds to 25.
The Icebox map has been reworked, with every significant area of the B site adjusted to alter how teams attack and defend the area. The middle land has been changed to make it easier for attackers to push, while the A site will now favor defenders needing a little help. Patch 4.04 is also implementing the ‘deterministic map system,’ which was designed to “increase the variety of maps that players will encounter” and should prevent players from playing the same map repeatedly. If it works as expected, Riot plans to implement it in all other regions going forward.
The patch notes are extremely lengthy. Read them all here.
Valorant is available to play for free on PC. In June 2021, Riot Games announced its plans to develop a mobile version of the game to commemorate the game’s successful first year, with over 14 million monthly active players since launch. The mobile version will also be the first step made to expand the game’s universe. In December 2021, Valorant‘s director Joe Ziegler stepped down to start a new project at Riot.
