New assets surface for LoL's Magma Chamber map

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Somewhere inside the hollow, dead volcano, a Bond villan is planning his next move.

A new set of images for the Magma Chamber (a 5v5 currently under development for League of Legends that we revealed in our November 2010 issue) have been released to us by the developers over at Riot Games, showing off the map's structure and some of the new neutral NPCs. There hasn't been an update on the map's release timeframe since we were told it was coming sometime in 2011.

The new map will be an oversized 5v5 map and is carved out of a dormant volcano (unfortunately you cannot trigger a lava eruption) and contains neutral NPCs that, when killed, grant new special buffs. As you can see, players now have many more options when choosing how and where to attack their enemy. But because the map is this large, coordinated team play will be essential.

While a larger map, the same rules apply here as TT and SR (existing maps): players will duke it out on the narrow lanes, using keen map awareness and accumulating smaller victories in order to win the whole match.

Although we don't know the NPCs' abilities yet, the appearance of the neutral NPCs will be different--as evidenced by the new red buff NPC above. You may not be able to start a lava flow in the current iteration of the map design, but the developers have stated that they are gathering ideas for such events in future updates.

With one side lava and the other water, the developers have many possibilities to play with when it comes to updates. Maybe an event could trigger the water or lava to begin to flow to the other part of the map and weaken the opposing side. Who knows? We'll be keeping a close eye on the map's developments and keep you up to date with its developments.