MAX REACTS: Project L is FREE TO PLAY + Illaoi Reveal 

The sheer amount of times Max mispronounced Illaoi has shaken me to my core I will never financially recover from this

Well, I never thought it'd happen; we have a soundbyte of Max shouting "TEEMO! TEEMO'S BACK!" and honestly, you could use that context in a horror game and nobody would bat an eyelid.

As someone who's been playing league for 11 years now, it feels so fucking strange to watch Max talk about league characters in a fighting game sense. I'm absolutely stoked to not only get to play Project L, but to watch Max enjoy it too. The characters in league are really close to my heart in both design and story, so I'm so fucking excited to share this ride and see how he reacts to seeing them in action.

"They should call your mother and tell her your child is playing a zoner' lol max is hilarious 😂

"Teemo is back!!!" Max you don't want to summon satan himself I tell you...

Illaoi was always going to be a perfect addition to the roster, a character design and fighting style that feels right at home in a fighting game. But all those details about the goals for her character and how she should feel to play make it even better. The team really seems to be going in a great direction when it comes time to hash out what these League champions should be in a fighting game.

I think it's gonna be the same situation max mentioned with strive that what matters is not how hard it is to play and learn but how easy to get the game is, for most people fgs are one of the hardest games to pickup regardless how easy veterans think it is compared to the old stuff

It's so weird seeing Max diving into the League universe XD

I love fighters with unique weapons, and having basically a huge-ass flaming kettle bell in the shape of a roaring creature has a ton of potential

Illaoi being in the game is great. She’s an amazing character and design. There’s so many ways they could translate her in game abilities into great moves and mechanics. Especially with the game being free to play, it could be massive. Can’t wait.

Interesting how Illaoi has become a sort of a staple character in the series. She was released during the biggest in-game event (The Burning Tides) pretty suddenly, where only the lore nerds who read the event story online would have recognized her when she got revealed. She lacked a kind of impact most new characters had, because she was teased in that specific way. Now she has become this "breaking the super model mold" female character for Riot. When you look for female character with a big and buff physique, she is basically the only one available, so I supposed Riot wants to push her a bit more than some more conventionally sexy female characters that are a bit more iconic. She has now made an appearance in the MOBA, card game and RPG, and she is now confirmed for the fighting game too. Only other logical place for her would be the mobile game, which would be pretty big, but I doubt she will take too long to appear there as well. There are a ton of other reasons too why she would be popular and a favorite for many players, because Riot did design her at a time when they took new characters and lore very seriously, a practice that has continued to this day, mostly. She is a full package of personality, aesthetic and story significance, so I'm pretty happy how the character has landed in the LoL franchise.

in league of legend the "stealing soul" part came in the form of u ripping a gostie copy of the oponent u hit, and then u can hit the copy to transfer damage into the enemy. if u manage to break the gosth, or if the oponent run away to break the conextion, they get cursed ( the curse consist on the nagakabouros tentacles spawning near you every few seconds to wack u)

I never got into LoL but Arcane was so good and the artstyle they have going on for Project L made me so interested in playing this game

Max you need to start watching the Champion Spotlights for these characters. I know you don't know nor care one bit for League Itself but it'll give you a much better understanding of their personality and playstyle than just a picture, and it's fun to think about how that translates to a fighting game.

Tom Cannon just casually dropping this bombshell of news is fucking amazing. Im so excited for this game! I'm so happy Illaoi is a base-roster character. She wasnt at all a character i expected. But MAN!! AM I EXCITED NOW!

Max screaming teemo is so accurate tbh. You see someone instalock that fiend in your ranked and you have the same reaction

NOW WE CAN BRING THE HORRORS OF TOP LANE TO THE FGC

It took me a good while too until I got it down how to say Nagakaburos. Riot really have been doing a great job at making this franchise appealing and approachable for people who don´t want to actually play League. From the free to play card game, to the show, to the actually excellent RPG there are a good couple of ways for people to get on board in one way or another.

Illaoi was a great character in Ruined King (the RPG), so I'm excited to see how she's translated as a fighting game character. So much potential.

All I want from Illaoi is a combo which she sends the opponent flying with a bonk, then command grabs the shit out of his soul while he's mid air, and then continues the combo in the soul while the opponent is knocked out.

I like the Undernight hit effects they added. Those always felt great - now to just have a good hit sound and it'll be satisfying!

Illaoi is one of my top picks for the game. She was one of my favorite champs when I played league and is in the category of “I love playing the character but hate playing league” along with rengar, ryze, and aurelion sol

Sounds like she's gonna be a unga-bunga character, and if they give her the soul snatch ability she has in league, she'll also be able to force opponents to come to her. Sounds like Max's ideal character lol

I really respect you took the time to read the blog post. Shows how much people are hungry for Project L news and are interested by it.

To sum things up for you Max, Illaoi is basically like one of the premier Juggernaut style characters in League. When League was overhauling how they classified characters, she was the newest one they added IIRC, and she was basically the frontrunner. What is weird is that in League, she is most definitely a zoner type character because she is basically a walking raid boss. You have to work around her rather than work her around you. I know you probably won't do a League history/retrospective on Project L at the moment for all the characters, I do highly recommend at least going to watch the characters' champion spotlights to see what kinda crazy shit they can do and how well the devs have translated them over to the fighting game format.

Even though Illaoi's not quite my cup of tea, I really appreciate characters like this ADDING more varied and interesting designs to video games. That's the key for me is MORE rather than taking existing tropes and designs away. Rather than limiting, removing, or replacing what has existed solely based on trends (or the perception thereof), you continue to widen the spectrum of character designs and options for the player.

Max: TEEMO IS BAAACK! LETS GOOOO!!! _What Max doesn't realize is that Teemo is one of the most frustrating characters to fight against, who does nothing but throw mushrooms and hides in bushes while shooting poison darts at people. Some even claim Teemo is the incarnation of Satan himself._

Hey Max you should check out the champion reveal videos from when the character was released in League of Legends, they are brief and show the abilities of the champion and snippets of gameplay. It would really enhance your reaction to the character announcment.

i have high hopes for the f2p not being super aids with microtransactions because their card game legends of runeterra is probably the most f2p friendly card game on the market at the moment. both teams are similar: they're a bunch of hardcore fans, experts, and veterans of the genre trying to make the best overall user experience possible for everyone. i'd be VERY surprised if project L just becomes a new diablo immortal.

Max struggling to pronounce all the League names followed by the short pause afterwards kills me everytime lmao

Thanks for covering this game and staying on top of it Max. I remember trying to find info on this game when it was first announced and was and still am hype about it. The development process is intriguing! Also am looking forward to see how Illaoi evolves.

It's nice that they decided to use the music for the league client as the music for this video.

Illaoi is what I refer to as a "woolie wheyfu"

All of Riot’s games are free-to-play with the only micro transactions being cosmetics, you also have the option to spend money for characters but they have this weekly rotation system where you can demo characters before you chose to buy them.

Max was a little early in his predictions. It was playable at EVO 2023, but no open testing. They've announced at-home testing for late 2024 and release window of sometime in 2025.

I've been craving some Project L news lately, and this is exactly what I needed. All I need to see is Riven and I'm grabbing this game day 1.

Illaoi is legit one of the best designed characters in League, I'm really glad she's confirmed this early

Riots dev blogs are always nice to read if you want an in-depth look into the design process. This one gives me hope that the characters existing in other game(s), with their concepts already tested, opens up more room to further improve on those concepts and fit them to the different gameplay.

Great vid as always! That after credit scene caught me off guard tho

Im gld they chose Ilaoi as their next champ to add. Iv always loved her disign not only look wise but as a character in a whole. I think she is a great addition to a fighting game.

Sweet, when I was looking through the characters in the LoL roster to see who might be in the game, my top pick was "that one buff chick".

When you said that stuff about zoners, I actually relate to you whenever I and other league players face a top lane vayne. Glad we have this shared disinterest in those players.

Loved that the video has the In Queue BGD music, like we're all in queue waiting for the release

I just hope that with Udyrs rework we will see him get into the game as a super sick stance changing combo character....

Long story short: Riot devs are working in every detail they've put into these characters, or know of these characters, into their movesets and designs and they wish to have a diverse cast so that no one, fighting game fan or not, or pro player or not, is left out. I can see why it's going to take a while, and it's fine. As long as the game is balanced, easily accesible, and fun to play, it's gonna do fine. Now, IF they can get that artsy pastel shaded style from the Arcane show working in the game, that would be MASSIVELY impressive.

I don't know if they're gonna have levels of supers in this game like Skull girls, but i can see Illaoi's spirit test and Ult being supers, with both being the two ways she can spawn her tentacles into the arena, with a projected hitbox, with her own tentacle smash having super armor. If they dont make spirit test a super then they need to include the mechanic she had early on release where fighting back against illaoi while being tested shortened how long you were being tested for.

MAX you should watch the champion spotlights for each of the characters that they have announced. I think it be cool to get your opinion on how they are going to translate the abilities they have over to the fighting game like you were talking about.

As a guy that studies art and game design for a past time, going into an art school wher I had some game design classes, and having participated in the making of some video games. I can totaly confirm that art and game design is always at each other throat. One of the game design we had to do was prototyping a game inside minecraft. We missed the prototype part and I went crazy with the visuals. There was definetly some weak part, but the teacher was really into game design. To a degree that could be bad in some game. Like a topologist would say a mug is the same shape as a donut, he was simplifying things to some insane degrees, (that would put all fighting game as the same shit).Max would definetly not agree with him, even just about importance of sick visuals. And so we got a pretty bad grade, while some people with stone boxes, yellow square and a good dificlty curv got a really good one. To be fair our game wasn't that good, but all the negatives we got where either because of us as a team, or lisibility. Even in part where people we tested with didn't had difficulty. Game design really goes against art. And art goes against t game design. He once said that audio dudes are probably the best people to work with because they are always making the game better. XD

Watching this game at 60fps is something else! looks soo good

I really hope there's a lot of references to the Champs already existing moves and skills as well as their ults or supers. I also think it'd be interesting if they added summoner skills that you could choose from character select. Like flash is a quick blink forward, ghost is a movement buff and can go through projectiles, teleport would take you behind the enemy similar to scorpion in mkx. Lastly, WHERE IS MY MANS ZED AT THO!?!

Kayn would be so cool in this. Imagine being able to choose between his two forms mid fight and having 2 unique fighting styles.

Project L could make a TOOOOON of money as a f2p fighting game. League already has a bajillion popular amazing skins and if they just 1 to 1 port those skins to project L they will makes insane cash

The second Mr. Cannon uttered those words, I KNEW Max was going to leap all over this.

that article and your breakdown are both incredible

Video reaction starts at 3:29

Illaoi ain't the most popular but she looks absolutely awesome and when my friends forced me to play League of Legends i wanted to play Seth and Illaoi, and when this game releases i finally can and also have fun doing it !

If there is anybody I'd love to play outside of league it would be illaoi she's so fricken cool

so excited my favorite champion is in the game! cant wait to try this game out!

I think it'd be pretty cool if you watched and reacted to some of their champion spotlights like you looked into dfo gameplay for DnF to see how some characters might play.

My picks is gotta be Graves and Twisted Fate. Those two guys are already a duo team in lore, so fitting them in Project L is perfect. I'm intrigued with what Project L got to offer.

Illaoi could very well be like, a "reverse trapping" character. Where instead of laying something down that you stumble into and get punished, she pulls it FROM your position, and getting away just gives her a free opportunity to score free damage. Basically, punishing Zoners AS a Bruiser. "You want to play half a screen away? Better not let me grab that Soul."

one of my favs made it in! now just hope my boys trundle and nasus do as well!

Since this reveal video, I've watched Arcane. I'm excited to see what comes of this

5 years ago I wouldn't have cared and thought the game wouldn't be successful but after arcane I think its elevated the franchise to an audience outside of gamers, so it will probably make as big of a splash as dfz but more impactful due to being free

Max: TEEMO IS BACK, LET'S FREAKING GO!!! 😂😂😂

I think instead of having her tentacles spawn away from her have them spawn on her(like wrapped around her arm) she gets tentacles by pulling your soul out and doing combos. Each tentacle max 5 adds extra damage, range or maybe even some new move sets. This keeps to the identity of a brawler but also a soul stealer tentacle slapper. :)

This disign process makes me want certain chsmpions in Project L even more so... i think Cho'Gath could be amazing in the context of a fighter, its essentially giant Bug monster thing that gets bigger the more it devours stuff, so it could be a sort of winning condition charakter that starts of small and weak but grows to be the hardest hitting and biggest char in the game. This could be done by filling up some recources or hitting a certain special move, the important thing would be that its gameplay could change significantly over the course of the match, the charakter starts as a small mid range char and eventually becomes a giant armored brawler or grappler.

I like Illaoi's addition as a means of spicing up the visual variety among the female cast, especially bc League has a bad habit of having alot of samey female characters also bc she's stronk woman and I'm into that, but that's just a bonus

You sold me at "tag". Tag fighting games are so hectic and fun

That stagger on block still feels like nails on a blackboard, other than that I'm pretty confident about this game. Making it a 2-tag game means exploring a huge amount of character combinations, probably some that wouldn't actually work in League, so this will be tons of fun. As for Il-ow-ee herself, she's been my favourite since her release, should feel right at home in a fighting game. Her special basically rips an opponent's soul from their bodies and her tentacles slam it to death with extra dmg for a voodoo kill. It's highly satisfying to score a kill against people who prefer to hide and play defensively - although it would have to be implemented as a command grab. So, the game's aspiring to be an easy to play fighting title... But with shit like Ekko and Darius' (axe guy) combos, I have my doubts about just how easy it's going to be. My greatest concern atm: turning it into a 2-touch game.

Illaoi was released 7y ago. I was there. And I feel old...

I can't believe I get to main illaoi again! Scott Hawkes you're a true hero! Of all the more profitable picks to put in the starting roaster I'm so glad they gave a slot to a passion pick.

Max face when it took him a second to notice that was Kenny cause he didn't wanna believe at 1st 😂

12:01 Max quite literally said was i was thinking

I remember when he covered this a good while ago while it was still more or less a tech demo. As a very long time retired League fan (haven’t played for a LONG TIME.) I am SUPER EXCITED for this. 6:20 She is a nine tailed fox after all… (HELLA EXCITED FOR AHRI.)

I feel like the animations looks way better than before. I remember thinking they were stiff last time

Max: "You should feel shame for playing grapplers and zoners" DBZ Broly: yes

Whomever edited this video, kudos for using the Summoner's Rift queue music in the background while Max was talking.

Good to see you again Maaaaax

With the ever-expanding number of genres of games Riot is bringing their SINGLE CAST into, everyone will eventually learn about their characters. It's wild. Centering all genres of games around a large cast of great characters. Genius.

I'm super pumped for this game, whatever happens it will shake the genre one way or another. I'm positive it'll be for good. Also a lot of folks need to pipe down and stop living a lie that the genre is doing fine because it's been on life support for a long time, only Strive recently managed to bring new people and retain some of them or got them to at least pick up a controller or stick and play.

Thanks Max! this character is looking really nice

The LoL theme song playing in the bg in the begining gave me flashbacks to 'Nam'

Ekko, Jinx, Illaoi I already love the roster

HELL YEAH!!! If they bring Sion Warwick Pantheon or Fiddle in the game, Im good I wanna play

My dream picks for this game senna,Lucian,talon,zed,yone, and Katarina

Puppet Fighter: Yorick, Leblanc, Zed, or Shaco. Yorick would behave like Jack-o with minion summons while the others would fight with a double to varying degrees. Zoner would be just about any ADC other than Vayne, Jinx or Lucian. Caitlyn, Graves, or Varus would prob be the best fits since they don't have as much forward mobility as the others. Gankplank could also be considered with his bomb setups and global stage control.

Max had me dying while saying the names of this character

I’m glad this game isn’t looking to match league players’ expectations, it’s gonna give them what they deserve. I’m not sure how a video game is going to line up and shoot that many people at once though.

We just have to wait and see.

I have a feeling we are going to see a lot of the same characters that were in Ruined King rpg they made last year-ish. Braum, viego would be cool to see in this for sure

FYI: The devs at Riot Games were inspired by Marth (from Smash Meelee) to desing the moveset of Riven, a fit woman armed with a big broken sword. I hope she gets added to Project L.

Max Screeming Teemo at the top of his lungs makes me kinda like teemo now

that very last clip after the outro really made me laugh out load

I love the idea with fighting games that u can have 1v1 and 2v2 but online with the 2v2..that would be awesome if fighting games go that direction

I like how they're focusing on the easy to learn hard to master aspect. The reason I could never get into games like Tekken or MK is because it felt like I was forced to learn a ton of annoying, hard to execute combos if I wanted to win even a couple games online (I could not get into Tekken cause characters could spam the same long-ass high and low combo that were impossible to block and could take off half your health). That's the main reason I really liked SFV and ggst (This game seems a lot like sfv but without inputs). In sfv I just needed to learn some basic combos, then as I played more I would learn more advanced mechanics, combos and punishes. Since this game is making attacks and combos easier, there would be less frustration associated with your character not doing what you want them to do (Biggest reason I dropped Tekken was cause the inputs were extremely inconsistent, but for some reason sfv inputs were always pretty consistent).

Illaoi is such a great character. I've loved playing her since she was released. Genuinely one of the few champions I was excited for prior to her release. And even though she's never quite kept up with the top lane meta, she's always been super fun to play. And not only her gameplay but her voicelines, personality, and design are all amazing. One of the better designs in all of League imo. I can't wait for Project L. I'm curious to see who else they introduce. There's a little over 170 champions in League and we know of like 6 that are gonna be in Project L so far. The months leading up to release, when they building hype with character drops is gonna be a wild time for League players. Seriously, there's gonna be Smash reveal levels of cope coming from League players during that time. It's gonna be great to watch.

I wonder are they gonna do a buff system like in league? ( for example if you played rengar and the enemy had khazix you would get a mission later in the game where if you killed the other champion you would get a buff same thing with senna lusian and thresh)

From reading that last bit about the tentacles being the ropes she just sounds like Aganos from KI tbh. Instead of rock walls it’s just tentacles.

If you like or are interested in Illaoi/Bilgewater in general and rpgs you should check out the Riot Forge rpg Ruined King, it's really fun to see the characters actually interact