It looks like Riot are getting set to fully reveal their first foray into fighting games – and now we know when.
Update 11/20: The developer update has been released! Check it out here.
News that League of Legends and fans of fighting games around the world have been waiting for has finally arrived. We now know when we're going to get our first in-depth look at the Project L fighting game from Riot.
When asked on the Project L subreddit when we might get our first look at the game, Tom Cannon, one of the lead designers on Project L, responded that we'd be seeing a developer update in late November. This places it squarely after Worlds, but before Valorant Champions in early December.
What we know about Project L so far
We don't know a ton about Riot's first foray into fighting games just yet. However, we do know something about the pedigree of the developers in question. Tom Cannon is one of the co-founders of the Evolution Championship Series, as well as the CEO of Radiant Entertainment. Radiant was purchased by Riot Games back in 2016 after their robot fighting game Rising Thunder made waves in the FGC. That game was known for its simplified inputs with all specials being one button on varying cooldowns, in combination with normals.
Details on the game's combat system are scant, however. It could use similar inputs to Rising Thunder, which were well received at the time. It could also have an entirely new system - but we will have to wait until November to find out more. The game was revealed alongside Valorant, at the time known as Project A, as well as a slew of other Riot Games in development. Unlike Valorant, the League of Legends fighting game is set to use characters from the Runeterra universe.
It's unclear how much the gameplay of Project L has changed since this first look, including if the characters shown in the teaser (Darius, Ahri, Katarina) will show up in the final version of the game. It's also unclear if the game will feature rollback netcode. But given that the Cannon brothers are the creators of GGPO rollback netcode, it's a safe bet.
More details on Project L will be revealed in the developer update, now set for around late November.
For the latest on Project L and fighting games in general, keep it locked here to Esports.gg.