Project Loki wants to be the next game you sink “thousands of hours” into, and it’s blending together elements from some of the most popular player-versus-player games in pursuit of that goal. Saying that its play-testers have described the game as a blend between League of Legends, Smash Bros. and Apex Legends, Project Loki wants you to see for yourself in a play test on June 29 to 30.
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The announcement video, introduced by former League of Legends exec Joe Tung, shows “pre pre pre pre pre alpha” footage of the game. It features squads of characters running around a large map, skirmishing against other groups of players and using abilities and items to take them down. The League of Legends comparisons come easily at first glance, with any one moment looking like something straight out of Riot’s classic battle arena.
However, the game also shows some unique traversal options, chaining items into abilities to jump over gaps in the terrain and even gliding through the air across larger chasms (sometimes knocking enemies to their doom in the process, a la Smash). The action also looks faster and more dynamic than League of Legends or Valve’s Dota, with more movement and faster time to kill.
Project Loki is the first project from Theorycraft Games, a self-described “very independent” studio made up of many former Riot, Blizzard and Bungie employees. That collective experience could mean the studio knows what it takes to make a vastly replayable PvP game with consistent support for its community — “a new competitive adventure for you and the squad,” as Tung puts it. As an independent studio, it could also have the freedom to take bigger creative risks than larger studios.
If you want to check out the action, you can sign up to be part of the game’s PC play test on June 29 to 30.
