I was one of the first to try out Riot Games’ League of Legends trading card game Project K in person at TFT Macao Open 2024.
Hours later on the same day, I wrote a guide on how to play, detailing its mechanics, rules, and more. You can read the full article here.
After my first trial experience, I had the chance to speak with game director Dave Guskin to find out more about why and how the team made Project K, its relationship with Legends of Runeterra, its distinct multiplayer design, what to expect in the near future.
Project K game director Dave Guskin hints at what’s coming next — it’s only just the beginning
Project K vs. Legends of Runeterra
When Riot Games first dropped the Project K announcement on December 8, 2024, League of Legends fans were quick to meme Legends of Runeterra which the company has chosen to scale down and limit resources.
For most League of Legends players, Legends of Runeterra is our first touchpoint. It is the first competitive card game that Riot Games released in 2020, fully online and digital. Project K, which officially launches in 2025, is their second card game and first physical set.
As much as LoL players want to compare them, these two project timelines didn’t overlap. “There was some thinking around if we should make something like this last year in 2023, but really only started true development of the game systems in the game this year in 2024,” Dave told ONE Esports.
“So it’s been pretty fast, maybe one of the fastest Riot games. It took us only a few months to find a game engine and game systems we really liked. And then we made content for our first set,” he said.
The team then conducted play tests throughout 2024, held its first public showing at TFT Macao in November, and are likely to launch in early 2025.
Instead of viewing LoR and Project K as competitors, Dave sees them being “supportive of each other.” LoR provides single player PvE roguelike experience and PvP while a physical trading card game opens spaces for friends to get together. LoR and LoL’s art have also been adapted into Project K.
Mechanics wise, one of the first things you’ll notice is that unlike Legends of Runeterra, you can’t combine champion decks in Project K. Each player uses a single champion deck, but you are allowed to have multiple copies of the same champion in your deck up to a maximum of three.
“We didn’t want to limit people’s ability to make crazy strategies and combos. So sometimes you’ll have a champion that works really well with a second copy of itself,” said Dave. “We have different versions of the champions as well. So for example, there’s a purple Jinx and a red Jinx, and we wanted you to be able to play both of them together.”
In the future, expansions will include different colored champions. For example, a yellow Jinx and green Jinx and their corresponding runes, which have varying abilities. Players can then mix and match to create their own playstyle within their Jinx deck.
Making Project K a multiplayer TCG right from the start
In the teaser video, Dave went even further — he said that Riot has created “the best social TCG” there is on the market.
“One of the things that I really cared about early on as game director — and our design team too — was that we wanted to make a game that was really inviting so you could bring friends to play and they would enjoy it and have enough time to learn it and grow into its strategy. The game’s DNA is that it’s multiplayer first,” Dave explained.
Many strategy card games are designed based on elimination, where players lose health points, die, then sit out. Project K’s design team wanted to avoid this so that players have time to learn the game, feel less pressure, and give them a chance to comeback. This explains the counter on the left of your playmat which tracks gained points from one to eight.
The second pillar that he believes makes a good social TCG is creating “big moments that are memorable” — a perfectly balanced card game doesn’t actually serve this purpose.
“I think it’s actually better to have, ‘Oh my God, it’s Volibear!’ or ‘Oh my god they played that spell, that’s crazy!’. That’s the excitement of the back and forth of everyone’s making big swings, that’s really important to a multiplayer game,” he said.
The third pillar Dave identified is approachability — it’s important that players feel comfortable bring a younger friend or family member in and teaching them how to play. Even though they’re learning and other players are experienced, the game should “still feel like you’re on a similar playing field.”
The future of Project K: why its going against the grain of small decks, fast-paced mobile TCG games
In an era where Marvel Snap and Pokemon TCG Pocket are dominating the market, it’s surprising that Riot Games is going in the opposite direction by creating a physical TCG instead.
“Making a physical card game was not something I expected. One of the things Riot Games does really well in is making really powerful social games,” Dave said. “Board games, party games, RPGs can do it, but I think there is like something magical about just having a TCG where you can build your own strategy, show it off to your friends, learn about their strategy, get really excited about it, and hang out together.”
Currently, there are no immediate plans to turn Project K digital. What players can expect are continual improvements and three main forms of expansion:
- Increased colored champion decks that provide more variation per deck
- New champion decks
- Accessories (eg. card sleeves, playmats that lets players express themselves, tokens)
There are more than 160 champions in League of Legends, so you can imagine the team has their work cut out for them. “The good news is we can make champions a bit faster than League does, but the bad news is there are a lot of them,” said Dave.
Some creative ideas the team encountered during the development process could also be part of future updates. For instance, they came up with a lot of battlefield variations, even putting monsters around battlefields by drawing inspiration from the jungle in League of Legends.
As for special Project K art cards, the exclusive Arcane card box at TFT Macao Open showcases Fortiche’s art style and Dave said that the team is definitely excited to pursue more “alternate art treatments” by engaging international artists. While they don’t have specific plans yet, it is on their minds.
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