Valorant: the 23 official Abyss callouts, back in Competitive — and why Riot leaves them in English in the French version

The 13.04 patch on August 18 brought Abyss into the Competitive and Deathmatch map pools, replacing Breeze. Riot wrote nothing more than these two swaps, in capital letters, one for Abyss's entry and the other for Breeze's exit. Two lines for a map that most players haven't touched in months, and which remains the most atypical in the game.

This guide starts from the 23 official callouts, as named by the client — not as streamers call them — and from the structure they describe.

Why Abyss's callouts stay in English in the French version

This is the first thing to know before opening a voice chat: Riot doesn't translate map callouts. This isn't an oversight, it's a choice, and it can be verified.

The map data published by Riot shows, for the same map, fields that are translated and fields that aren't. Abyss's tactical description reads « Sites A/B » in French, « A/B Sites » in English, « Areale A/B » in German: localization works. The 23 callouts, however, are strictly identical across all three languages. Bridge stays Bridge, Nest stays Nest, Vent stays Vent.

The practical consequence is simple: if your team says "the conduit" or "the nest" in French, no one will know what you're talking about on a multilingual ladder. The client displays Vent and Nest. That's the nomenclature that holds as the reference.

The 23 official callouts of Abyss

Riot sorts them into five zones. Here's the complete list.

Two observations drawn from this list alone. First, A and B each have a Tower, a Link, a Lobby, and a Main: without a site prefix, a call is ambiguous. Say "A Tower," never just "Tower." Second, Mid alone concentrates five callouts — Top, Bottom, Catwalk, Bend, and Library — and three of them carry a height indication in their name. Abyss reads as much vertically as horizontally.

What makes Abyss unique: there are no edges

Abyss is, according to Riot's official documentation, the first Valorant map without outer boundaries, with a deadly void in the middle. You fall in, and you die. It's not scenery: it's a mechanic.

Three consequences, all documented by Riot:

• Danger (B) and Secret (A) are narrow ledges set on the outer edge of the map. They serve as jump shortcuts. Their name isn't decorative.
• Catwalk can only be reached by jumping over the Mid gap, from Top or Library, to grab a rope ascender. There's no other direct access.
• If the spike falls into the void, it respawns at B Danger — a fix Riot had to make, and one worth knowing: it's not a lost round.

In other words, half of Abyss's aggressive angles come at the cost of a fall. A duelist who fumbles an entry on Secret doesn't fall back: they die.

The four rope ascenders

Riot documents four of them, and they map out the entire vertical circulation of the map:

• from A Site to A Tower;
• from B Main to Mid Bend;
• one in the attacker's spawn;
• the one on Catwalk, accessible only after jumping over the gap.

The second is the most underrated: it links B lane directly to the middle of the map. A B → Mid rotation doesn't necessarily go through a Link.

The Vent doors: 120 HP, and a color code

The two entrances to Vent, on the A side, are closed off by destructible doors that absorb damage and gunfire as long as they hold. The official numbers:

• 120 HP per door;
• a color indicator that shifts from blue to yellow then to red as it takes damage;
• once destroyed, the passage stays open for the rest of the round.

This is the most exploitable piece of information on the map, for two opposite reasons. On attack, opening Vent early costs bullets and makes noise, but creates a second lane onto A for the rest of the round. On defense, a door's color is a free sensor: a door that's turned yellow tells you someone's working on it, without any teammate having to look.

Where Abyss fits in, and since when

Abyss is the eleventh standard map added to Valorant, released into the game on June 11, 2024. Its official structure: three lanes, two sites. Its narrative setting places it at the Elder Grotto, beneath the island of Jan Mayen, Norway — a Scions of Hourglass base reclaimed by the VALORANT Protocol.

Riot's official presentation, published in English, sums up what you're meant to look for here better than any analysis: it invites players to use the deadly falls to invent new ability tech, or to push an opponent into the void, and warns that the high risk only pays off if the execution lands. The wording is the publisher's; the translation is ours.

Three habits to pick up in your first Episode 5 games

1. Prefix all your calls. Four landmarks exist in duplicate between A and B (Tower, Link, Lobby, Main). A call without a letter is a lost call.
2. Check the color of the Vent doors before turning. Blue, no one has come through. Yellow or red, someone is working on your flank.
3. Only take Secret and Danger with a planned exit. These are ledges, not angles: there's nothing behind you.

A clarification on the rest of the pool

Riot only publishes the rotation's entries and exits, never the full pool. Patch 13.04 states that Abyss is coming in and Breeze is going out, and nothing more: any list of the seven Act 5 maps circulating elsewhere is a reconstruction, not official communication. What is certain is that Abyss is playable in Competitive, and that Breeze no longer is.