League of Legends: Dominion Launches

Just five short days after its limited beta began, League of Legends' new Dominion gametype has been released to the public.

Dominion represents a radical departure for League of Legends, bringing a new type of gameplay to a traditionally closed genre. The new mode abandons the map and RTS-inspired objectives that made DOTA and its clones famous, instead tasking players with capturing and holding control points scattered around a circular map.

As you can see from the above developer walkthrough, the result is something like a cross between the familiar League of Legends experience and Battlefield's Conquest mode. Rather than merely attacking the enemy base, you'll have to escort your minions to the five control points located around the map. Each control point you hold does continuous damage to the enemy's nexus, meaning the team who controls the most points for the longest will win the match.

Riot has promoted Dominion heavily over the last few months. The developer had massive booths at both PAX Prime and Gamescom, the sort of presence you'd expect for unreleased AAA titles, rather than an update to a free-to-play game. It'll be interesting to see how that investment pays off now that Dominion has reached the notoriously closed-minded, change-resistant community of DOTA fans.