IGN has an exclusive preview up of "The Courtyard", a newly implemented PvP map for Fury. Featuring some very nice graphics and an interesting design, Fury looks to be taking it's PvP arenas seriously. Below is a snippet of their article and some screenshots:

Since our initial look at the game, a few critical pieces of information have since been locked into place - in particular, the finer points of the storyline and reasoning for Fury's unique game structure, with its Sanctuaries and Warzones and heavily gothic, Asian tones.

This is Courtyard - the newest map unveiled by Auran.

So why all the mayhem and magical warfare? As the story goes, the inhabitants of Fury's universe were at the height of their successes. They were loved by the gods and in turn, they worshiped these beings diligently. As a reward, the gods gave these humanoids the gift of magic. Typically, this gift was abused and the gods, being temperamental sorts, decided the best course of action was to ditch these magic-imbued beings and leave them to their own destructive devices. Unfortunately, the more the beings used magic, the more energy was being sucked from the universe, causing what was referred to as 'The Fade'. Hence, much of the universe has faded away, and there are only small areas left, which are hotly contested.

The tale of the newest map - one of the contested areas - Courtyard, provides a tantalising taste of the complexity of the history. You can read the full tale early next week in our exclusive background excerpt, courtesy of Michael Hampden from Auran.

Courtyard is an 'Elimination' map, meaning that it's been designed to cater to Elimination mode first and foremost. However, as with most other maps, other game modes are also very much playable on it. As it fits into the four dominating schools, Courtyard is very much a 'Life School' map. The giveaways are the Asian architecture and the emphasis on water and snow - key elements in the School.

Combat is a blend of rapid-fire magic and physical combat.

As your character is deposited into the map, each character on your team begins inside a holding room. After a short countdown, you're able to leave the straw-mat, thin-walled confines. The level itself is set high on a mountain; snow swirls through the air and ice is packed onto the tiled rooftops of the pagodas that line the enclosed map.