Riot Games smells blood in the water with Overwatch dying, Apex Legends being stillborn, and Battleborn being aborted post-launch. The landscape of hero-shooters was ripe for manipulation and the Tencent-owned company behind League of Legends will be trying their hand at the tactical-FPS genre in 2020 with Project A.
The game was recently announced during a 10th anniversary celebration held by Riot for League of Legends. Yes, the game has been around for ten whole years.
Project A is like a cross between Counter-Strike and Overwatch. The game focuses a lot on twitch reflexes and hip-shooting encounters, but with a dash of character-driven special abilities and skills, which you can see in action with the developer video below.
There isn’t anything particularly special about the game. It’s basically the exact same thing we’ve been playing for years, only they’re focused on stopping cheaters from the outset (which isn’t a bad thing at all) and focusing on reducing input latency, gameplay lag, and server-side packet loss that results in missed hit-detection or frustrating encounters where you pump an entire magazine into someone but they still keep on ticking.
Since Riot is still under the spotlight for the whole gender discrimination hoopla, they tried playing into the hands of the Regressive Left by having executive producer Anna Donlon provide commentary for the game to mitigate criticisms from the usual suspects. It also leverages Riot to dismiss any criticism aimed at Project A’s lack of originality by allowing them to play the sexist card against detractors.
You can tell they really thought this through from a PR standpoint.
However, what this doesn’t absolve them of is their defense of the PRC and censorship by prohibiting players or casters from even commenting on or promoting pro-freedom sentiments toward the people of Hong Kong.
But beyond that, Project A just doesn’t look that great. The character specials seem like alternative but similar expys of the Overwatch crew, and the gunplay looks like a complete ripoff of Counter-Strike.
I noticed Riot was also wise to avoid talking in depth about the characters. So many companies are so quick to play up how gay or how queer their characters are, even before you find out what their skills are, which is exactly what Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment did with Apex Legends. They spent a good deal of time drumming up PR over the fact a big black guy liked LARPing as a prison inmate who scarfed down stud schlongs, while one of the other characters was mentally ill to the point where they didn’t know what gender they were.
Given that Riot is likely going to launch Project A in mainland China due to their parent company, Tencent, being the one pumping money into the game, it’s unlikely that they will toss in any overt LGBTQIA+ characters… for now.
More details are expected to arrive for Project A come 2020.