First details on Riot’s new shooter Project A emerge from Counter-Strike pro

Riot Games revealed its mysterious shooter Project A back in October 2019, but has kept the game’s details a carefully guarded secret. Now it seems that the company is showing Project A to a few more people, including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive commentator HenryG, who was able to share a few of his first impressions about the game on Twitter.

One of the first things that HenryG notes in his Twitter thread is that the game feels most similar to CS:GO if he had to give a quick comparison. What he played featured round-based games with five-on-five combat, all wrapped in a tactical shooter package. He notes that the matches he played required 12 rounds for one team to win the game, had attackers and defenders that switched halfway through the game, and the maps had two bomb sites — this description is almost identical to Counter-Strike’s Defuse, the game’s most popular and well-known mode.

Despite the fact that the game is hero-based and there are abilities, that isn’t the primary focus like it would be in games like Overwatch or Apex Legends, he said. Most of the abilities require players to purchase them at the start of each round, along with purchasing weapons. Based on HenryG’s descriptions, it sounds like abilities will function similarly to the utility items like smoke and flashbang grenades that exist in CS:GO, they just happen to be a little more outlandish.

While the abilities certainly sound impactful, HenryG described one situation where he uses movement abilities to trap an opponent before moving in to finish them off, it doesn’t seem like they’ll be the deciding force for most rounds.

“You can have a great time playing without having to rely *too* much on the abilities to assist you in your game,” he tweeted.

The reason for this is that the weapons themselves are especially deadly. Rather than games like Overwatch where few characters can offer one-shot kills and abilities decide how almost every encounter plays out, HenryG also tweeted that most of the rifles in the game will take down an opponent in one headshot. HenryG also mentions that each class has access to the same weapons, which should mean that you can choose who you want to play a little more freely than other games of the style.

Finally, HenryG mentions how much he liked the map design of Project A, noting that it felt like it followed the kinds of design philosophy that has made Counter-Strike maps iconic for years.

In a tweet about the maps, he wrote, “they have been beautifully created and follow Counter-strikesque [sic] familiar lanes and choke points. With the focus on gameplay substance, rather than flowery aesthetics.”

HenryG also mentions that he will be able to reveal more information about the game in the future, as well as creating other content around it, but that this is all he can say for now. In one of the threads’ final tweets, he leaves fans with this this tantalizing bit of information, “[Project A] is the best game I have played since CS:GO.”