The expansive and immersive world within League of Legends has characters that are beloved by fans of the franchise. Over the past decade since the debut of LoL in 2009, Riot has seen immense success in their other projects as well. Though their MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) is their company’s claim to fame, they’ve also received favorable praise from their first-person shooter Valorant. Valorant features some of the champions we all know and love for the first time outside of the rift, unlike Teamfight Tactics, which is an auto battler similar to League of Legends.
From card games to comics, to even an anime in the works, Riot has been busy keeping their fanbase happy with the exciting and new content. The latest, however, happens to be the most secretive projects yet. Project L and Project F are two very elusive works whose release dates have yet even to be announced. Today, we’ll be taking a look at Project L and all the details that we know thus far about the fighting game.
Similar to Tekken, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat, Project L features mechanics closely resembling their play style. From what was seen in a teaser released by Riot in Oct of 2019, champions can duke it out in a setting featuring Runeterra. It’s unknown if maps will be interchangeable or even what maps will be featured in the game, but I know I’d personally love to see an Ionia or Bilgewater based backdrop.
There seems to be four abilities available to champs, including a super ability, which is similar to the layout League of Legends already has. There are combo limits that remind me of Tekken, where players who are knocked up in the air can only be hit a certain amount of times before they fall. When they fall, they’re untargetable until they get up again. This was seen briefly in another gameplay teaser featuring Katarina and Jinx, where Katarina fell after being shot in the air by Jinx. She, seemingly, couldn’t be damaged for a short period after that. This is accompanied by a standard health meter and what looks to be a stamina bar that refills over time.
It’s unknown whether or not Project L will be available on consoles. Primarily, Riot has stuck to their PC fan base and have only dabbled in mobile game releases every now and then. However, Project L seems like the perfect segway to enter into the console community and gain new fans with a competitive fighter like this one. It does seem that Project L will be free, considering Riot’s track record of keeping their games free-to-play. But, that doesn’t mean there won’t be tons of cosmetics or special characters that players will be itching to spend coin on, much like League of Legends and Valorant.
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One of the key talking points surrounding the release of Project L is the revolutionary usage of implementing rollback netcode, seeing as how this is an online fighting game. GGPO (Good Game Peace Out) is middleware software that allows fighting games like Project L to be completely lag-free. The implementation of this will allow for fast-paced, technical fights that aren’t weighed down by high ping. The mechanics of the game don’t suffer, which means that players won’t suffer due to the frustration that comes with lag and delays.
The characters we’ve seen so far are Ahri, Darius, Jinx, and Katarina, but I’m sure more of the Runeterra cast will be available as well. It’s also good to know that ADC’s like Jinx can also get in on the action even though they aren’t melee. That’s pretty much all that’s been released, and it’s unknown whether or not production has been halted or delayed due to the pandemic. If we’re lucky, we’ll see an announcement for a release date soon enough. Regardless of when it comes out or what happens next, all I know is… I better see Sett.
