There are rumours circulating of a Project L roster leak right now. The source, a League of Legends client survey revealed online by Youtuber Innovate Gaming, has many in the early Project L community excited for potential picks. However, it’s worth taking the “roster leak” with a pinch of salt.
The client survey, recently shown off to the world by Innovate gaming but first filled out back in June 2022, features a list of 22 League of Legends characters. For each character, the video shows the question “how would you describe your relationship with the champions below?” Innovate Gaming also claims the survey asked about the characteristics of certain characters, and what made them memorable. If it is a real client survey, it very much appears to be Project L related.
There are several reasons why a portion of the early Project L community are convinced this features future characters. For one, each of the six characters we’ve already seen in Project L are present. Secondly, questions surrounding champion characteristics and memorable aspects line up with what the Project L team has established as a core character design goal, as seen in Illaoi’s concept blog post.
These in addition to the fact that we know the Project L team are deep in champion development mode right now appear to be enough to generate some hype around the list. However, it’s worth keeping your composure and taking the information revealed in Innovate Gaming’s client survey with a grain of salt.
It’s worth emphasising that the information is not a “leak”. It does not come from internal documents, the words of an employee, a hack, or accidental reveal. This comes from a survey, one that was sent out to League of Legends players to fill out. You’ve got to ask, why would Riot Games intentionally list the entire roster for an upcoming game in a public survey that people could just send around to their friends or followers online? Why would they shoot themselves in the foot like that?
Also, why would Riot Games ask for community feedback on champions they’ve already locked in? If, for example, everyone polled said they didn’t care for Teemo, and stated the most memorable parts of his kit was his mushrooms the fact that people hate him, it’s unlikely that the team would blindly march ahead with that in mind. The game hasn’t even got a release date, nor has it got any concrete plans on competitive format yet.
What is more likely, at least in my mind, is that they’ve intentionally included the Project L characters they know work in-game as comparison points for potential additions to the roster. With Jinx present as a zoner, they can take community feedback for her and lay it next to feedback on Lux. With this they can see what’s similar and what’s different, and figure out how to transfer what players like about Lux into an actual fighting game character. They may have even intentonally included some red herrings in there — who knows!
If I were a betting man (I am), I would expect several of the champions present in this survey to make it in, but not all. June, when the survey was allegedly filled out by Innovate Gaming, was just before we heard that Illaoi’s development was kicking off. Pair this with the fact they were continuing their hiring spree back in July, and I reckon that by the time the survey was released, they were still fleshing out the final cast.
Take the survey for what it is, an information gathering venture. Maybe I’m wrong, and the survey does include the actual final launch roster for Project L. If so, I’ll take my lumps, but I’d also be absolutely astounded that Riot Games let that slide out and take away from the pre-launch Project L hype train.
But what do you think? Do you see the survey as a smoking gun? Let us know below!
For more Project L content, check out our boots on the ground chat with League of Legends fans at the LEC final this year, and whether they care at all about Project L right now.
