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Riot Games' upcoming fighting game 'Project L' was confirmed by the studio in 2019 but the studio did not have much to share during the announcement. Two years after the original announcement we now have a look at Project L's gameplay and it could potentially break down the geographical barriers of the fighting game community.
What is 'Project L'
'Project L' is a fighting game that Riot Games is working on featuring 2v2 gameplay. While the game's development is nearing completion with Riot fine tuning stages and characters, the dev team revealed that it will not be releasing the title in 2021 or 2022.
The official announcment for Project L revealed that Riot wants to build a fighting game that people play for years or even decades and the dev team does not want to rush things. The game will be using technology like 'RiotDirect' to minimize ping to ensure players across the world can play with each other with minimal latency.
The game is being marketed as 'easy-to-learn and hard-to-master.' There will be at least two updates about Project L next year. The team is currently building a full roster of champions, design stages, menus, user interface, ranking systems, and more.
Why Project L may popularize fighting games globally
Japan and USA have been dominant regions in the fighting game genre while the FGC has negligible presence in some other regions. Iconic titles like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Tekken have not been able to match the popularity of battle royales, tactical shooters or MOBAs in regions like Southeast Asia but that may change with the arrival of Project L.
Riot Games has been successful with all of its recent titles. Legends of Runeterra, Teamfight Tactics, Valorant, Wild Rift and Project L were all announced in 2019.
Valorant has quickly become one of the most popular shooters out there with a fleshed out competitive circuit. TFT broke 4.5 million downloads within the first month of its launch while LOR crossed 13 million downloads in its first year, which puts them among the best in their respective genres. Riot's newest entry 'Wild Rift' has broken into Southeast Asia, a market that the publisher could not tap into with League of Legends in the past.
Project L is the only remaining title from Riot's string of game announcements from 2019. With over 180 million monthly players across all Riot titles and the success of its first-ever TV series 'Arcane', the publisher is no stranger to pitching its offerings to a global audience.
Most competitive fighting games follow a 1v1 setting but Riot Games seems confident in its duos gameplay which sets it apart from the likes of Street Fighter, Tekken and Mortal Kombat. If the publisher makes Project L approachable for players new to the genre, while also keeping a high skill ceiling, it could finally globalise the FGC.
