When a competitive game is as popular as League of Legends, any small change to the maps can have a major impact. Riot Games is about to push out a new and updated version of Summoner’s Rift, the most popular map in the game, and today they went more into detail about what that means.
The video up top shows a pre-beta version of the revised map. In a new post on the Riot blog, they have laid out some of the changes, which focus on making the action easier to read without fundamentally changing the map’s layout:
Given the importance of Summoner’s Rift to League of Legends, the fundamental structure of the map remains untouched. Flashable walls, turret ranges, lane sizes, brush interaction and ward placements are exactly as they are on the current map. The intention is to keep moment-to-moment League of Legends the same while improving gameplay through additional clarity.
What clarity translates to is the updated map doing a better job of drawing eyes to the most important information of the moment. When fights break out, the environment should be the background, allowing particle effects and champions to pop off the screen and feed players the crucial data they need to make the right play.
Beyond this, Summoner’s Rift should help players and spectators stay oriented. The western half of the map looks damaged by the emergence of Baron Nashor, while the eastern half feels ancient and overgrown. This, alongside each quadrant’s respective buff, gives every jungle section thoughtfully placed landmarks and subtle colour cues. Speaking of the jungle, a cadre of new monsters made Summoner’s Rift home, sporting designs that more accurately reflect their respective gameplay characteristics. For example, the Krugs’ (double golem replacements) rocky exteriors look like the damage soaking mini-tanks they are — and they appear weaker than the hulking Blue Sentinel.
The new map will arrive soon in the public beta environment (PBE), where players will have a chance to try it out themselves. Riot says that after that, they will be sharing more on the process behind the update and offering live Q&A sessions with the developers working on it.
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