Riot Games announced a physical card game and fans of its digital card game, Legends of Runeterra, aren't happy about it

2 weeks ago 64

(Image credit: Riot Games)

In a slickly produced four-minute video, Riot Games revealed that it's been working on a card game. This came as news to players of its existing card game, Legends of Runeterra, which had its team and scope reduced as part of broader cuts at Riot in January. But this isn't a digital card game. This is a physical TCG, codenamed Project K.

"Project K is not a physical version of the fantastic Legends of Runeterra," game director Dave Guskin said in the breathless trailer, "but it does inherit some of the rich champion design philosophies of LoR."

Introducing Project K: The League of Legends Trading Card Game - YouTube

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That didn't help to appease Legends of Runeterra's fans, who have interpreted this announcement as a betrayal. Comments on YouTube and Reddit are full of pained responses like "Imagine trusting a Riot card game after what they did to LoR" and "Legends of Runeterra died for this" and "Lowkey a slap in the face to LoR's existence lol." (There are also a few jokers gleefully pointing out that the art depicts "Old Viktor in the cards? LMAO" rather than the divisive new version in season two of Arcane.)

Guskin described Project K as a card game that can do it all, saying, "Whether your jam is team 2v2 battles or free-for-alls, a way to relax with friends or go all in on alliances, backstabbing, and betrayals, we think we've created the best social TCG out there and something you will really enjoy." Magic: The Gathering's popular Commander format would like a word, I suspect.

Project K will have a staggered release, beginning with a launch in China early next year. "We want to have competitive play that reaches from the store level all the way up to national-level tournaments and maybe even global events," executive producer Chengran Chai said.

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Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.