The League of Legends fighting game Project L is free to play, or will be whenever it launches, Riot, Riot announced in a brief new update video. Project L’s senior director Tom Cannon said the team wanted to carry on Riot’s tradition of making games accessible for anyone, regardless of where they live or how much money they could spend on video games, and while Cannon didn’t say it, the news naturally that means the game will likely have microtransactions too. Cannon offered no release date for Project L, but did say the team has moved on from establishing the basics and is now designing Champions and new mechanics to help expand the core gameplay.
Elsewhere, Riot published an in-depth development blog outlining the process of bringing one of those Champions to life in Project L: Illaoi. The team reflected on the many, many factors they take into consideration when designing a Champion for Project L, including their role in LoL, along with personalities and abilities in other League properties, such as the Cursed King and Legends of Runeterra.
The team wants to capture the essence of what makes a Champion who they are and the potential of who they could be. Illaoi in Project L is truly larger than life, with big hitboxes and even bigger attacks. She hits foes with her totem and, true to her LoL variant, summons ghostly tentacles from Nagakabouros to assist. This relationship went through a few alterations before the team settled on something they believed fit Illaoi’s personality, with her as the dominant force and Nagakabouros’ power playing a supporting role.
She’s slow, but an expert at creating openings to strike opponents and keep them on the defensive. She’s also still early in development, so we likely won’t hear much more about Illaois or Project L any time soon.
Cannon said he’ll have another update on the fighting game later in 2022, but gave no indication of when that might be. We’ve waited long enough for an update since the first Project L gameplay, so having another one to look forward to in the same year is actually quite exciting.
Meanwhile, if you’re wondering how much you’ll probably spend in Project L, there’s a nifty new way to track how much you spent in League of Legends. Microtransactions aren’t always bad, though. Profits for the recent Star Trek round of LoL skins went to charity.
