Riot Games, developer ofLeague of Legends, has announced that it is working on a new tactical first person shooter. Currently titledProject A, the game is completely new and not related to theLeague of Legendsuniverse.
This comes out from a Twitch stream whereRiot announced a new fighting gameset in theLeagueuniverse and more projects, indicating a big shift for the business model of the studio. The stream was a celebration for the 10 year anniversary ofLeague of Legends, where Riot discussed the future of the game, the mobile ports, and updates. Riot also announcedLegends of Runeterra,a collectible card game aiming to be more accessible thanHearthstone,and an animatedLeague of LegendsTV series calledArcane.
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Riot showed some very early looking gameplay of its “character based tactical shooter” currently with the working titleProject A.The FPS will learn fromLeagueand have distinct characters with unique abilities that will take place on a near-future Earth. The gameplay showed off the shooting and basic ability usage. It looked a bit like a mix of the unique hero ability basedOverwatchand a slower, more tactically-paced game likeCounter-Strike.
According toProject AExecutive Producer Anna Donlon the team at Riot is “in this for years and years to come. WithProject A, we are staying true to the high consequence gameplay of tac shooters. But we want to evolve the space. We want a tac shooter with more creativity, more expression, and a lot more style.”
Visually, the game has a long ways to go to live up to that promise of an expressive, creative shooter but Riot confirmed that the game will be in development for years to come. The tactical shooter is a genre that has largely been crowded out, and even the most traditional tac shooter on the market,Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, ispivoting to the battle royale genre.Rainbow Six Siegehas amassed a following by modernizing and consistently adding fun, interesting new characters to the game.
Riot Games is a studio still in the middle of a PR crisis aftera sexual harassment class action lawsuit was filedagainst the company. This followed reports of discrimination and harassment at the company that led to a walk-out in May. After the lawsuit settled, Riot announced a “First Steps Forward” initiative to address their company culture issues.
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