If you’ve paid enough attention to fighting game fans, influencers, or players over the past year, you’ll know that Project L is thundering toward us from a dark future. In its purest sense, it’s the elephant in the room around which every new release, every new announcement, and every new development in the genre is measured.
people are Riot Games Seem to understand the environment they are walking into; R&D projects that finally get the green light and push to the forefront. The first news we see in Project L revolves around respected and experienced employees leading development, a tactic Riot has previously used in the saga of Runeterra and Valorant, which have backed big names in their respective genres . This, as it apparently intends to do, makes it a little hotter for every 30-something nemesis to have an arcade stick in the collar. Pants fell off, followed by announcements of free games, great netcode, and 2v2 format.
But while Riot may be hyping the crowd with a boxed copy of Street Fighter 4, it’s arguably more important to Project L’s long-term success that it won over the non-fighting game crowd. The Alliance, Valorant, Runeterra, and Wild Rift communities not only dwarf FGC, but are likely to be the first truly fresh players who will also be the first to choose Riot for their forays into fighting games. My biggest question about Project L right now is simply, “Do League of Legends players really care?”
To find out, I FADC’d hopped on a plane to Copenhagen and safely hopped on a train to Malmö, Sweden for the League of Legends LEC Summer Finals. The event with a live audience for the first time in two years is also a hotspot for competitive Riot fans who, in theory, should buy what Project L is selling.
“I don’t really like Street Fighter games,” admits Alex, who traveled to Sweden to watch the final with three old gaming pals Kate, David and Owen. “I prefer RPGs, and League of Legends has RPG elements in it to some extent.”
“I think it’s easier to play together!” Follow Kate. “You can’t really play with a fighting game, but in an MMO you can. We play together a lot in World of Warcraft, New World… similar games”. No one in the group was particularly excited about fighting games based on the genre itself or its connection to the wider League of Legends world, regardless of their long-term experience with League of Legends and competitive online gaming.
However, there are some “what ifs” that increase the excitement level of the team, which obviously goes a long way towards winning them. Alex came up with the idea, which in turn got his friends nodding in agreement: “Maybe they have a feature like Tekken tag tournaments where you can swap between players and tag other people – if we You can line up in five or four and tag each other, and that’s great.”
It’s worth noting that in the Riot Games catalog, the vast majority (with the exception of Legends of Runeterra, which we’ll get to later) allow a group of friends to actively play together at the same time. Fighting games like Mortal Kombat try to bring entire gangs into the King of the Hill mode experience, but even then, the vast majority of players remain in the sidelines, and often not.The overwhelming attitude I saw from the people who went to the LEC finals last weekend is that they would rather play beside Their Friends To some extent, some people emphasize the ability to play with friends to keep them playing certain Riot games.
An attendee, one of the few die-hard Rogue supporters I found standing on the expo merchandise line, has been following Project L closely since its release. He thought the game was “excellent” and that it solved the problems other big fighters had faced, but left with concerns. “As far as we know so far, isn’t there a unique feature that other fighting games don’t have? Legends of Runeterra has this big single player roguelike thing, League has seasonal events and Urf. I would love to see fighting games with new ideas Surprise people.”
It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however, nor tragic indifference. None of the people I spoke with said they were against joining Project L for two main reasons: the free-to-play game, and its connection to the League of Legends world.
“I’ll give it a shot, why not? All the games that Riot has come out with are good – I’ve played TFT, I’ve played Legends of Runeterra, obviously I like Valorant right now, and it doesn’t actually cost anything Money flew in from France to support G2’s Theo. “I mean, I play a lot of games that you have to buy, like big single-player games, but I’ll play anything that’s free. I’ve played shit, but as long as I don’t lose money, I don’t mind! “
It’s kind of crazy to walk around the expo and pre-game arena over the weekend and experience a large crowd, I used to think that day one would go down with a fighter made by Riot, but there are some serious caveats. However, some players who opted for League also brought up an aspect of competitive fighting games that they really hoped Project L would capture. Bogdan, from Romania, has been around Fnatic from head to toe, hoping to get some old-fashioned community vibes. “I want to see the hype that Street Fighter had back in the day, and that’s what it takes to create a truly engaged community.”
Another Stefan from Germany, like an outdated teenager. He was visibly excited when I mentioned Project L, saying he watched and read the recent Illaoi update and wanted to see “the kind of great moments you get back to in Marvel vs Capcom 3 days” , and claimed that he really liked the “raw” moments he remembered seeing at the time. A League of Legends fan who loved the fighting game events of the early 2010s? It felt like a unicorn talking to me before jumping into the Malmö Arena.
All of the above is obviously from a handful of big events, but as one of the hardcore league fans — hardcore enough to spend some big cash flying abroad for the league — it’s impossible to argue that they don’t have an opinion on the idea of a broader player base . From what I’ve seen in Sweden, Project L may have won major points in fighting games like mine, but they still have to win over Riot’s loyalists.
For more Project L coverage, check out our article on the five Leagoe of Legends characters we’d like to see in Project L, and why Project L might have everything it takes to make it powerful.
