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Everything we know about Project L – Details, Release Date, and more

May 29, 2023

Project L is one of the upcoming fighting games developed by Riot Games. Let’s go through everything we currently know about it.

Image Credits | Riot Games

Project L – What is it?

Project L has been one of the most anticipated games in the League of Legends universe. Moving away from the MMORPG genre, Riot Games is planning to break into the fighting game category with this project.

The game is classified as a 2D fighter, where each player takes control of a pair of League of Legends characters in a 2v2 battle where both characters on a team must be KO’d to win. One of the most straightforward similarities is to the Smash Brothers series. It will be a three-button fighter, featuring special move inputs with simple direction commands, making it different from some of the traditional fighting games.

“We want to create a game where you can have fun right away, while also rewarding you for the time you spend mastering it,” said Shaun “Unconkable” Rivera, Game Director and Gameplay Design Lead on Project L. For that reason, the game will be enriched with numerous tag and defensive mechanics, creating various interactions to make the game always refreshing to play. Rivera wants to reward players for playing offensively with big, explosive combos.

Image Credits | Riot Games

That said, Riot will also make sure to appropriately balance the defensive with the strong offense mechanics, without making either of them too powerful.

Just like all the other Riot Games products, the developers announced in their August 2022 dev diary that the game will be free-to-play, giving all the players the chance to try the fighting game. Tom Cannon, Senior Director and EP for Project L, wants people “to be able to play no matter where you live, what your skill level is, or how much money you have to spend on a game” and that when it comes to monetization, they will respect “your time and your wallet”.

When is the Project L release date?

There are currently no confirmation on when the game will be released. After being first showcased in Novemeber 2021 during the huge Arcane event, we’ve only had some updates on the gameplay side of things. Based on what the information so far, it looks like the game is still quite far away from being released to a closed beta, let alone the live servers.

How long has Project L been in development?

Theoretically Project L may have been in the works as early as 2016 when Riot acquired Radiant Entertainment, the video game developer company founded by Tom and Tony Cannon. That said, Tom Cannon announced that Radiant was developing a fighting game connected to the League of Legends universe in August 2019, which turned out to be Project L.

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When is the next beta?

Unfortunately, players are going to have to wait another while before seeing a beta for Project L. So far, there have been invite-only playtests, which means only a few selected people got their hands on the game.

What characters are in Project L?

Below are the characters seen in the promotional material for Project L:

Katarina
Darius
Ahri
Ekko
Jinx
Illaoi

While there are no confirmations on the total amount of characters and which champions might be featured, it’s likely we’re going to see the roster expand before the game is fully released. However, according to youtuber Remus, it seems like the current leaked total is 23. Below you can find the leaked list:

Akali
Braum
Blitzcrank
Ezreal
Katarina
Karma
Kindred
Lux
Rengar
Riven
Senna
Sett
Thresh
Vi
Yasuo
Teemo
Samira
Zed

All official Project L updates

If you want to know the official updates on Project L and everything that Riot Games has been working on so far, you can find the list of all their videos below:

Riot is also known for producing written updates and statements on all the games they work on. If they don’t publish a video update, it’s likely we’re going to see some written posts instead on their official official Riot Games blog.

What platforms will the game be released on?

There’s no word on which platforms Project L will be coming to. That said, it’s likely we’re going to see Riot Games release the game on PC, just like all the other game titles. Whether Project L will make it to the console versions, though, is still a mystery.

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Who is working on Project L?

We’ve already mentioned Tom Cannon and Shaun “Unconkable” Rivera in this post, but let’s take a closer look at their background and why you should be excited about this upcoming game title.

Tom Cannon, who founded Radiant Entertainment, has a long-standing history in the fighting game genre. He is the founder of the EVO Championship Series, the largest fighting game tournament in the world, and together with his brother Tony, they also founded the rollback netcode technology, GGPO. In addition to leading Project L, Tom also leads Riot’s Bay Area studio which is based in Redwood City, California.

There was another important name involved in the game, although he left to work at Epic Games in 2019 and is now working with Netflix Games as the Head of Design. Seth Killian also had a major role in the early development of the game.

Shaun “Unconkable” Rivera, instead, already used to work for Riot Games as he previously was a Senior Designer for Legends of Runeterra, before switching to Project L as Game Director and Gameplay Design Lead. He boasts nearly 11 years of experience in Riot Games, having started back in 2012. Alongside these names, there is a team of other Riot R&D developers working at Riot’s San Francisco offices.

Will there be a dedicated esports/competitive scene?

It’s been a tough period of esports in general, with teams struggling to become profitable and capital funds running out. While nothing is confirmed as of right now, it’s likely that Project L will have its own competitive scene, but it’s going to be quite different from the ones seen in team-based games like League of Legends and VALORANT.

Nothing is set in stone, but we might see a similar approach to the ones used in other fighting games like Super Smash Bros. Stay tuned for more details.

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