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Project A: Everything We Know - Characters, Weapons, etc.
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As part of the 10th anniversary of League of Legends, Riot Games has announced their latest creation based on their FPS characters called Project A. Here's everything we know about how Riot will develop the competitive shooter.
To celebrate the unprecedented success League of Legends over the past decade, Riot announced the creation of a shooter, with one of its leading characters at the forefront, during a special 10th anniversary edition Riot Pls, 16 October.
Codenamed "Project A", the FPS is currently in its early stages of development and boasts a number of respected, experienced developers behind its design, including the CS:GO card maker Sal 'Volcano' Garozzo.
Riot Games Executive Producer AnnaSupercakesDonlon walked us through an early reveal of a new FPS that comes exclusively to PC.
"Project A is our character-based tactical shooter: it's competitive, it's got accurate shooting, it's set on beautiful ground in the near future, and it's got a deadly cast of characters, each with their own unique abilities—that's our take on competitive shooter .”
Donlon then went on to say that "just like League of Legends, we'll be coming with this shooter for years to come" with the goal of evolving the tactical shooter genre by realizing "more creativity, more expression and a lot more style."
Players
Project A will feature a "lethal pool of characters", each with their own set of abilities to support any play style.
As we were teased in the trailer, the shooter will be a team shooter, and given Riot's experience with their MOBAs, relying on lane usage and strategy will suggest the right combination of characters and abilities to allow teams to thrive in Project A.
Given that Riot's new FPS will rely heavily on character interaction with the map, using and properly deploying abilities will be paramount to gaining victory over your opponent. EP Riot teased how each ability would work in a given situation: “In Project A, your abilities create amazing tactical opportunities for your weapon play.”
Riot Games CEO Nicola Laurent also supported the reliance on gunplay, stating that "shooting matters" meaning that the character's abilities won't directly win the game.
“You don't kill with abilities. Abilities create tactical opportunities to make the right shot. Characters have abilities that increase their game, instead of fighting directly with their abilities.”
According to the teaser trailer, players will be able to use a combo of four abilities per character. The farthest right ability appears to be terminal (which seems to require a transitional charge period). Interestingly, the ultimate ability seems to be a set of throwing knives that you can throw towards your enemy. Contrary to Laurent's aforementioned statements, the ultimate ability can be used to eliminate enemies (as shown in the trailer).
Along with a roster of abilities that will give you a tactical edge in the game, it looks like players will spawn with 100 health points.
Game process
Notably, the alpha version of the game appears to be powered by Epic Games' Unreal engine (the swiss army knife of development tools), which will allow the development team to explore almost limitless possibilities.
In addition, the integration of the engine will not only contribute to smooth code patches, but will also contribute to the creation of an aesthetically pleasing title, as the engine supports many textures and effects.
In terms of game features, the tactical shooter's boot options seem to rely on a "buy menu" similar to the FPS titan - Counter-Strike.
Weapon
Only the trailer shows several categories of weapons and variations. As with other tactical shooters, a wide roster of weapons is essential to ensure varied and intense firefights. Considering Riot's CEO expressed that "shooting matters" we can expect to see a lot of weapon combinations.
In addition, the game uses both hip-fire and aim-down aiming (ADS), both of which display smooth transitions, allowing for a more "fluid" feel to the game.
Both hip-fire and ADS showed minimal recoil in the trailer, hinting at the inclusion of hitscan as opposed to projectile - eliminating the need to consider execution times or adjustments for bullet drop.
Riot is building its own internet?
Donlon also focused on addressing the "peeker advantage" in shooters, a phenomenon that exploits server ping latency as players move. To combat this, the development team is making changes to the netcode options to ensure that all players get a level playing field through play ping-balancing.
In parallel with the removal of the peeker advantage, Riot will strive to minimize packet loss from the player to the server. As Donlon stated, Riot is “going for big things like global infrastructure,” which in turn means they will need to change the basis of their networking capabilities.
In a 2016 post, former CTO Peyton Maynard-Koran detailed Riot's plans, stating his ambition to "build (your) own internet." In short, the model assumes a reduction in the number of variables, and hence packet drops. Given the commitments suggested in the trailer, Project A may use this plan and adapt it accordingly.
Is cheating a thing of the past?
Along with the aforementioned network dynamic changes, the Riot team has “put anti-cheat at the forefront of (their) development” and “will do everything possible to keep your matches intact.”
Cheating has plagued the gaming community across all game genres, however, given the reliance on a clear target and fast reaction time, hacking is common in tactical shooters. However, the use of aimbots and the like may be a thing of the past in Project A, which will give confidence to those considering switching to a new competitive shooter.
Release date
Riot hasn't confirmed an official release date for Project A yet, but Donlon implied they're going to "go down for a while" and teased that we can expect more FPS details in 2020. While no date has yet been set, Riot's first venture into the shooter genre is expected to fall in the second half of 2020.
Stay tuned as we update this article with the latest news from Project A.
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