Before the start of VALORANT Champions 2023's final days, which were held in Los Angeles and ended at the famed Kia Forum, Sunset was first exhibited to media personnel behind closed doors.
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Following hints that Riot was creating a map set in their own backyard of Los Angeles, California, the following VALORANT map has finally been made public in Sunset. Sunset was a labor of love for the city the developer calls home, even if the map makers acknowledge that there were some special difficulties.
Before the start of VALORANT Champions 2023’s final days, which were held in Los Angeles and ended at the famed Kia Forum, Sunset was first exhibited to media personnel behind closed doors. Lead map designer Joe Langford gave a lengthy presentation about the process used to create the map during the special event. As a native Californian, he said he enjoyed the chance to create a map in LA.
Two-site map Sunset is littered with LA-inspired details like food trucks, a skate park resembling the famous Channel Park in San Pedro, instantly recognizable art deco and mission-style architecture, a vintage movie theater, graffiti murals made by real local artists, and even the iconic “golden hour” mood lighting.
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It prioritizes quickly taking mid-control and utilizing unique cover opportunities to catch opponents off guard. The team worked hard to locate the “sweet spot between mood and gameplay,” according to Lansford because the team found it difficult to discern shadows with the full golden hour lighting effect. Lansford was giddy with excitement as he talked about the making of Sunset and how the crew traveled all over the city to get ideas and take pictures for the film’s reference and production materials.
It was common practice when creating VALORANT maps to scale back some of the more ambitious concepts; Pearl, then known by the codename Pitt, initially had a huge hole in the ground. Several of the more ambitious concepts for Sunset were also reduced. A Viper’s Snakebite-like harm was dealt to players who lingered too long in an acid pit in an early version of Sunset that was located beneath an inclined hallway. There was also discussion of a door similar to Ascent with switches on both the attacker and defense sides.
However, the team chose a more straightforward strategy, therefore these ideas didn’t catch on. This, according to Lansford, is the result of the map development team’s attitude of “dialing back [map] complexity” and allowing the complexity to emerge from the players through their agent choices and lineup building.
At the media event, many professional players demonstrated how to quickly seize control of a site using the well-known Harbor-Viper wall combo, forcing the other team to test both passive and aggressive defenses to stop it. At the start of Episode Seven, Act Two on Tuesday, August 29, Sunset will formally enter the VALORANT map pool. Fracture and Pearl will be replaced by Sunset and the re-entering Breeze.
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