Riot Games is going hard after the fighting game community at all levels with Project L and is now taking its campaign to the global stage with a confirmed playable demo set to feature at Evo Japan 2024 in April.
A short developer update featuring Kyohei “MarlinPie” Lehr, an FGC veteran from the Guilty Gear and Marvel vs. Capcom community who is now working as a game designer on Project L, addressed the Japanese FGC from the Riot Games ONE event in Yokohama. In it, he spoke about some of the game’s basic concepts and how the team is excited to hear from fighting game loyalists and newer players to continue building Project L into something that can break down barriers.
To do that, the Project L team is planning to bring a playable demo of the game to Evo Japan 2024, which will run from April 27 to 29 in Tokyo. “We want Japanese fighting game fans, as well as Riot Games fans who have yet to experience fighting games to discover the fun for themselves,” MarlinPie said. “Our goal is to build the game with you, and for you, with communities around the world.”
The last time Project L was publicly playable was at Evo 2023 back in August, where hundreds of players got to try out the game and talk directly to the developers about what they liked and didn’t like. Riot has also been actively working with professional players from the FGC and other games behind closed doors to get feedback too.
The developers have been quietly working on the game without sharing too much new information since announcing Yasuo as a playable character for the Evo 2023 build of the game. This update didn’t share any new details about Project L, but between now and April we should get some form of update—and potentially see a new Champion added to the roster ahead of this Evo Japan demo. There is also no information on a potential global online beta that players have been fiending after, which isn’t a surprise based on how far out the game seems to be from launch.
