It’s here at last. Vainglory (Free) and its long-awaited 5V5 mode are now available to the general public. It was originally announced for February 13th, but it released early, kind of. It’s already the 13th in Asian territories, but the 3.0 activation is rolling out midday in North America and in the evening in Europe, so you can go download the update and start playing 5V5 right now. Save your Golden Tickets for Willy Wonka!
The new map is called Sovereign’s Rise, and it’s a three-lane map to fit everyone in the 5V5 battle. The jungle contains two of the Storm Queen’s dragons. Ghostwing appears first, and the team that defeats her gets a buff with a regenerating barrier, health, and energy outside of combat. Blackclaw appears later, and the team that defeats him will have him rampage down the middle lane, attacking anything in his path until his massive health bar is depleted. Fog of War is also in Sovereign’s Rise, hiding elements on the map that the player can’t actually see. Oh, and the enemy’s Vain crystal now can defend itself with Halcyon Missiles and Rupture Cascades, which might turn the tide of battle.
With 5V5 dramatically changing the dynamics of Vainglory, Super Evil Megacorp had to make some changes to heroes. Specifically, some heroes are faster, stronger, and attacks have extra range in 5V%. SEMC says, for example, Fortress’ Attack of the Pack ability now has five wolves when used.
There are a lot of changes and new elements to the map, and while you can just go and play the new map yourself and learn what everything does, Super Evil Megacorp also has some tools to help out with that. The 5V5 Sovereign’s Rise interactive map shows where everything is and provides details, which is handy regardless if you’re new to the game entirely or curious to see what the 3.0 update adds.
If you have a 120 Hz device like the newest iPad Pro models or the Razer Phone, Vainglory 3.0 officially supports 120 frames per second on those devices. The iPhone X is still 60 Hz, but Vainglory at least added support for the device in a recent update.
This is just the beginning for 5V5 in Vainglory, as Ranked mode for 5V5 will come in a future update. You’ll want to check out the patch notes for update 3.0 as SEMC runs down the detailed stats for the enemies including the dragons, how experience for kills works, various behaviors in the jungle, and more. Plus, there’s some balance changes for heroes and items, along with bug fixes and improvements to run down in a separate list of patch notes. If you love your skins, then good news: 5V5 isn’t slowing down their release. A set of Lunar New Year skins will release as part of the Red Lantern event starting on February 15th, and the Vox on Ice skin is available now, just in time for the Winter Olympics.
Vainglory 5V5 in update 3.0 is available now on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore.
