After four years, one of three maps to have always been in the competitive rotation, Bank, will be removed in favour of the newly reworked Theme Park when Season 11 of the Pro League resumes on the 18th of March.
The maps of Bank, Clubhouse (pre and post-rework), and Consulate have been in the competitive map pool since Season 1, meaning that as fan favourites such as Oregon have left and maps like Border have entered competitive play, these three maps have had the greatest presence in R6 esports history. Furthermore, with Clubhouse's rework back in June 2018, and Consulate's map buff in September 2018, this leave's Bank as the sole one with no changes since the game's launch in 2015.
While the map has seen a number of meta shifts over the last four years, the basement Locker/CCTV objective has remained one of the most well-practised sites in the game and is seen as somewhat stale, like Oregon's Laundry/Supply Room objective before it was reworked. As well as this, the introduction of Kali into the competitive operator pool this month also means that the second-floor CEO/Lounge objective would likely become attacker-favoured as the defenders would theoretically be completely restricted from traversing on almost all of the second floor.
Replacing the old staple of Bank comes the new-look Theme Park. It was released in September 2017 and then reworked in December 2019 as last season's map release, but is still not very much favoured. While the initial release saw most of the map area remain unused when played and drew comparisons with Bank regarding its size, the rework aimed to fix this by stripping out the middle train section, replacing the Haunted House area of the map with a much more open Throne Room, and removing a number of runouts, spawnpeeks, and long angles.
The blueprints of the first floor of Theme Park. (Photo: Project Athena)
When the newly designed Theme Park was initially announced during the Operation Shifting Tides panel, it was stated that it had been "thoroughly reworked for balance and better competition", possibly hinting that the change had professional play in mind back then.
The blueprints of the second floor of Theme Park. (Photo: Project Athena)
Here's what Patrick “MentalistC” Fan from Fnatic, Lukas “korey” Zwingmann from Rogue, and Marlon “Twister” Mello from FaZe Clan thought about the reworked map three months ago:
MentalistC:
Korey:
Twister:
While opinions may have changed in the months since, this is likely to be a fairly unpopular change, with Border instead being eyed for replacement by most pros and the reworked Oregon championed as the incoming map. Here's how some professional players have reacted to the announcement:
LATAM Pros:
Team Liquid's coach, André "Sensi" Kaneyasu:
EU Pros:
Natus Vincere's Leon "neLo" Pesić:
And his teammate, Luke "Kendrew" Kendrew:
Leon "LeonGids" Giddens from Team Secret:
And his teammate of Matthew "meepeY" Sharples:
G2 Esports' analyst of Jack "Fresh" Allen:
NA Pros:
DarkZero Esports' player of Alexander "Skys" Magor:
And his teammate of Paul "Hyper" Kontopanagiotis:
Team Reciprocity's Gabriel "LaXInG" Mirelez:
Spacestation Gaming's coach, Justin "Lycan" Woods:
APAC Pros:
Fnatic's player of Patrick "MentalistC" Fan:
And Giant Gaming's coach of Ellis "GiG" Hindle:
Casters:
The Pro League caster of Parker "Interro" Mackay:
A part of a four Tweet chain about the map by Ghassan "Milosh" Finge:
The North American caster of Samuel "Stoax" Stewart:
The North American caster of Christopher "Uzumaki" Valdez:
Nevertheless, Theme Park will likely make it's Pro League debut in the coming weeks, and with no map rework scheduled for Bank in Year 5, it is unlikely we will see it return any time soon. With that in mind let's take a quick look at some of the map's highlights over the last four years of Rainbow Six Esports:
- Continuum vs Playing Ducks 1v1 to win North America's first and only Pro League title:
- APAC's very first map played at a Pro League Finals:
- G2's title-winning map at the 2019 Six Invitational:
- SSG's title-winning map at the 2020 Six Invitational:
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For further updates on R6 Esports as they are announced keep an eye out here at SiegeGG.