League of Legends Finally Updates Summoner's Rift

League of Legends launched in October 2009, and it launched with one map: Summoners Rift, your standard-issue five-verses-five battlefield with three lanes, eleven towers, and countless slain minion corpses trodden underfoot.  And since that launch, League has been in a constant state of evolutionreleasing new champions, new game modes, new maps, and new mechanics.

But now the game is 5 years old, and the seams are showing.  So the folks at Riot games (who developed the title) have been making a habit of updating older champions and items so theyre up to the modern standard.  And now, finally, its Summoners Rifts turn.



Gone are the days of high-definition champions patrolling flat, dull, and outdated geography: this new, updated map will finally give League players something to be slightly less embarrassed about when they compare their game to DOTA 2.  The neutral monsters are improved, the minions look better, and everything generally just looks better all around.

"As some of you have guessed, we've been working on an update to Summoner's Rift for a while now.' Riot Aeon announced over the League of Legends website, "This effort is a big part of our commitment to continually improve League of Legends. Were focusing on preserving the spirit of Summoners Rift and evolving how the map communicates gameplay."

Gameplay wise, however, very little has changed.  You can still flash over walls and hide in bushes, by and large these are just cosmetic improvements.  But there will be two major differences in so far as the neutral bosses of Dragon and Barontheyre both getting improved attacks and stats to give them a better boss fight feel.  They specifically mentioned the new dragon will have a new line attack and an AOE nuke that deals considerable damage.



This new updated map will completely replace  the old Summoners Rift, so if you really like bushy cartoony trees, get your fill in now.  Granted, you might have a lot of time to say goodbye to the old mapdespite the announcement, the new map isnt even ready for beta yet, so well still have quite a wait before we have that update.

With any luck, well have one or two improved champion Visual Updates in that time.  They might be even less tolerable against such a high-res backgroundlike putting the characters of Reboot, completely unchanged, into the next Crytek game.

But still, good show on the new map.  Im excited, at least.