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The studio also showed one of Project L's champions Illaoi.
Riot Games has announced that its upcoming League of Legends 2D fighting game codenamed "Project L" will be free to play. Senior director and executive producer Tom Cannon promised the company will be "respectful" of the players' time and money when talking about monetization.
Riot also showed the next League of Legends champion to appear in Project L: Illaoi, the Kraken Priestess.
Released in League of Legends nearly seven years ago, Illaoi is a "beefy juggernaut," a "powerful and charismatic spiritual leader who inspires others to be their own unstoppable force."
"Illaoi is a strong and muscular woman who attacks with a giant totem, so it makes sense she would hit with her own physical strength, as opposed to hiding behind the power of her god or magical abilities," explained Game Designer Caroline Montano. "We also needed tentacles. Illaoi’s god, Nagakabouros, is a tentacled sea monster, and there needed to be some aspect of that in her kit. But beyond empowering her attacks, Nagakabouros also gives Illaoi the strength to steal her opponent’s soul."
Illaoi will be the sixth of the confirmed League champions in Project L together with Ahri, Darius, Ekko, Jinx, and Katarina.
Riot Games also talked about the dev process in Project L overall, saying that the team first decides which champions to add "to have a diverse and inclusive roster where everyone can find a champion that truly speaks to them." Then, the studio plans out when to begin working on them and creates a pod of people across disciplines such as design, narrative, art, engineering, tech art, QA, production, and audio.
After that, the team focuses on DNA: when the Designer, Narrative writer, and concept and animation Artists explore possibilities, inspiring each other with visuals, thematics, and ideas.
"From there, using some extremely rough models and kits, we get the ideas into the game. Once we’ve locked down a direction, the team expands to include the rest of the disciplines that’ll be working on the champion. But that stage is something we’ll cover at a later date."
If you want to learn more about Riot's Project L and Illaoi in particular, check out this blog post.
Project L was first announced in 2019. There is no release date for the project yet, but Riot Games promises to share development updates before the end of the year.