Over the past few years, Riot Games have branched out to other genres of gaming outside of their flagship title,League of Legends, using the brand as a gateway for other ventures. Last year, bothTeamfight TacticsandLegends of Runeterrawould release, the latter being Riot’s version of a card fight game within theLeague of Legendsuniverse.
Riot’s first FPS,Valorant, was released shortly after combining the hero ability format ofOverwatchand the objective-based “one-life-per-round” gameplay ofCounter-Strike. Prior to its official release,Valorantwas a hit among playersfollowing a successful beta integration via Twitch drops. WithWild Rifton the way, promisingLeague-style gameplay on mobile devices, there is a bevy of other titles from Riot that players have been patiently waiting for.
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One of the titles was aLeague of Legends-themed fighting game,first announced during the 2019 EVO tournamentby EVO founder, Tom Cannon, who also announced that he will be working on the game along with his brother and fellow EVO founder, Tony Cannon. After months of silence, it appears that news relating to theLeaguefighting game, codenamedProject L,will soon be announced. ProRuneterraplayer The Skilled Roy first discovered that Riot began rolling out player surveys to specific players.
What’s intriguing about these surveys is that it targets players in the greater Los Angeles area and the questions in the survey relate to fighting games. At the end of the survey, Riot asks for a schedule of availability, with the lucky players chosen for a future playtest within the LA area. The Skilled Roy deducts that the playtests will be related toProject L, as theProject Lstudios are not only based in LA, butRiot had done something similarwithValorantprior to its closed beta.
Tom and Tony Cannon founded Radiant Entertainment and in 2016, developed the PC fighting gameRising Thunder.Shortly after the game was canceled, Riot Games bought Radiant Entertainment and it was then that they began development on theLeaguefighting game. Details onProject Lwere first revealed alongside what would eventually becomeValorantin October and it was rumored that more informationwould have been revealed during EVO 2020were it not for its cancellation.
With the announcement ofSony’s recent purchase of EVO, The Skilled Roy believes that aProject L-related announcement will happen during EVO 2021. Part of the reason is that the founders of EVO would not only want to share more information about their game, but the playtest surveys and the window of timing seem far too coincidental.League of Legendsand fighting game fans alike will have plenty of information to look forward to between now and August when EVO 2021 begins.
