League of Legends Project L: fighting game champions, release date, gameplay leaks

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Project L is Riot Games’ upcoming fighting game set in the League of Legends universe. More details are coming to light after the game’s first reveal in October 2019. Here’s what we know so far, including the roster of champions, a release date, gameplay footage, and more.

The League of Legends universe has been ever-expanding since Riot released a can of worms during the League 10 Anniversary celebrations in October 2019.

Project L has arguably been the most secretive game of the lot. As Legends of Runeterra and Valorant launched, and Riot delved into their MMORPG and indie titles under Riot Forge, there hasn’t been much news about the fighting game.

However, Riot are working towards a big release in Project L, finally sharing more details with the world recently. Here’s what we know so far about Riot’s League of Legends-inspired fighting game, including gameplay footage, confirmed champions, and a rumored release date.

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Project L, the League of Legends fighting game, is nearing its release.

Project L release date

Cannon said the Project L team still has a long way to go, but they’re working very hard on it. Players shouldn’t expect to get their hands on Project L until 2023 at the earliest.

The developers will continue to give updates in 2022 and beyond though, with the promise of two info drops in the next 12 months.

What League of Legends champions will be in Project L?

On the character side, a few League of Legends champions were spotted in initial Project L trailers, including Ahri, Darius, Katarina, and Jinx.

What’s neat is that there are multiple different types of abilities resulting in numerous different styles. While a champion like Darius uses his axe for combat, similar to a game like Soul Calibur, Ahri could be primarily projectile-based.

Here’s a full list of League of Legends champions confirmed for Project L so far.

  • Ahri
  • Darius
  • Ekko
  • Jinx
  • Katarina
Riot GamesProject L’s original prototype, here shown in 2019, looked a lot like Street Fighter V.

Project L trailers & teasers

League 10 Anniversary announcement

Project L was briefly revealed during Riot’s League of Legends 10 year anniversary stream back in October 2019. Tom Cannon, the game’s director, spoke briefly about their ambitions, with a first look at prototyped gameplay.

Trailer begins at 33:37

RiotX Arcane Epilogue trailer

The next time we saw Project L was during the RiotX Arcane event in November 2021 — two years on. It has evolved a lot since it was first shown off, with Riot explaining some of the game’s mechanics.

Project L gameplay

Project L appears to be a 2.5D “assist-based” fighting game. The characters will be 3D models fighting on a horizontal 2D plane — close to Street Fighter V.

It will have tag-team mechanics, where you pilot a squad of two different champions, swapping them in and out to land some nasty combos.

“This is the right foundation to build a game that rewards strategic team building and on-the-fly decision making, on top of strong fighting fundamentals,” the developers said in a November 2021 update.

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Project L will be an assist-based fighting game.

Original prototypes featured a standard 90-second match timer. Additionally, the game keeps track of combos indicating how many hits connect with an opponent.

Character-specific meters also indicate the possibility of EX-attacks and supers, though nothing has been shown off yet.

Riot are also using their RiotDirect netcode that has helped reduce ping for Valorant and League of Legends, with some rollback elements.

We will update this piece with more Project L news as it comes to light.

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