Valorant is dropping one of its oldest maps

pcgamer.com:

Riot is planning to remove Split from Valorant's map rotation for the foreseeable future and I'm sad about it. With the imminent start of Episode 5 Act 2 and the release of new map Pearl, Riot has decided there is such thing as too many maps at once, so it's deleting one for the foreseeable future. 

Split is one of Valorant's oldest maps. Alongside Bind and Haven, it made up the three original maps players dipped into. At launch, Split's defender-sided layout was controversial with players. Today is still regarded as imbalanced but has seen some improvements over the years. In the years since, Riot has also released Ascent, Icebox, Breeze, and Fracture, making a total of seven maps in circulation. 

Seven, to Riot, is the perfect number. Joe “Pearl Hogbash” Lansford, design lead on the maps team talked about the change in a press release, saying: «Learning a new map can be one of the toughest parts of a tac[tical] shooter. Going from “learned” to “mastered” is even harder. Doing that on a whole bunch of maps is a steep learning curve. Not to mention all the combinations of agents and utility. It’s a lot! Simply put, too many maps to learn can feel overwhelming and doesn’t give some of you the opportunity to really go deep on any one of them.»

Alongside esports organisations it was decided that keeping a seven map pool was for the best and so they had to decide which map had to go. If you play Valorant on the regular you'll know that Split isn't the game's most unpopular map. Fracture and Breeze, the two most recent additions, are generally more disliked by fans. As they're newer, however, it's unlikely Riot would ever want to take them out of rotation, so it was likely that one of the original three maps was due to get