Project L showcases Duo Play, its co-op tag mode

If you’ve thought that playing fighting games with friends gets a bit too contentious, Riot Games is working on an answer. The League of Legends company showed off more footage of its in-development fighting game Project L today with the reveal of Duo Play, a co-op option for the tag-team fighting game.

Project L is a two-on-two tag fighter, similar to games like BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle. This means each side fields two characters, picked out of the League of Legends universe of Runeterra, for its matches.

While you’d normally pilot these teams solo, Project L is also offering Duos, which lets two players team up and each handle an individual fighter. It basically turns Project L into a co-op tag fighter, where you can combo off each other, throw out assists, and tag in and out.

This Duo Play is something that other tag fighters have done before, but does seem particularly well-suited to Project L. Aside from the fun tie to duo queuing in League, it could make the arena feel a bit approachable for newcomers. Alongside the breakdown video above, Riot also published a showmatch, where its developers showed off the Duo Play mode in Project L.

If this seems like it’s up your alley and you also happen to be in Las Vegas for Evo 2023, then you’re in luck. Riot will be hosting show floor demos of Project L at the big fighting game event, with four playable characters: Darius, Ahri, Ekko, and one to-be-revealed character.

Squaring off

That’s not the only Project L content that hit today, either. A bunch of fighting game players and community members apparently got a hands-on session with Project L recently, and were able to talk a bit about it today.

From the sounds of it, there are still some restrictions around how much they can say about the roster and characters available. But still, we can get a pretty good sense of how all the systems are coming together. Alongside Duo Play, there are some other neat concepts for the fighter, like a Capcom Vs. SNK 2-alike Groove system.

Project L has been in the works for quite some time now, and the team’s been taking its time crafting this game. But I have to say, it looks like it’s paying off. Everything here seems ready to entice a lot of players who don’t often pick up fighting games, while still having some really nasty options for long-time competitors. The roster could be the cherry on top too, as League of Legends certainly doesn’t have a shortage of champions to pick from. (I also secretly hope Riot pulls in a Valorant cameo or two.)

With the demo headed to Las Vegas and a super-secret surprise developer reveal scheduled for Evo 2023’s Friday Showcase, I imagine we’ll be hearing more from Riot soon. But it’s nice to know that I won’t necessarily have to always PvP my friends in Project L.