The creators of League of Legends have been working behind closed doors on a competitor to Super Smash Bros. The brawler from Nintendo is very popular among fans. However, another fighting game caused Riot Games to halt development.
What kind of game was it supposed to be? The title was developed under the codename Pool Party (via ReaderGrev). By May 2024, around 70-80 employees were said to have been working on the game. It was supposed to be a platform fighting game, similar to what we know from Super Smash Bros.:
- Multiple players choose their fighter from many different franchise characters
- The fighters are thrown into an arena consisting of multiple platforms
- In 2D view, players fight each other using their characters
- Each fighter has their own special attacks, but the basic moveset is the same for each
Instead of Mario, Peach, and Bowser, we would have fought with Teemo, Ahri, and Viego in Pool Party. Riot Games saw an opportunity to strengthen the eSports scene in this area. However, as Joe Hixson, the Senior Comms Director of the company, revealed, there are several projects each year that are considered for existence.
Another game from Riot Games is Valorant:
A competitor led to the cancellation of Pool Party
Why was the development halted? When Multiversus launched and flopped, Riot Games reconsidered the development. The crossover fighting game is a competitor to Super Smash Bros. and included many characters from the Warner Bros. universe.
At launch, the title was a huge hit, but it lost around 99% of all players within just seven months. Ratings also fell from 93% to just 63%. Reasons for this included delayed seasons and missing content.
Therefore, Riot Games reconsidered the concept and wanted to incorporate mini-games like in Mario Party. However, the shift in direction seems to have upset some employees. Ultimately, the development was completely halted.
What happened to the employees? About half of the 70-80 developers have already been reassigned to other projects. Some are still looking for new positions via the internal job board. Unfortunately, 10 people received no offer at all and had to leave the studio.
The sources did not mention whether the cancellation of the title would affect other projects from Riot Games. At the same time, the studio is working on 2XKO, which is also supposed to be a fighting game: The new game from Riot Games has a strange name that many find silly – but there is a good reason for it
