Riot Games has been slowly stepping its foot into the fighting game genre with 2XKO being their upcoming game that will be featured at Evo 2024. It has been reported that Riot Games was also working on a Platform Fighter, code-named Pool Party, that would have competed with Super Smash Bros. Melee.
According to Mikhail Klimentov from ReaderGrev, approximately 70-80 employees were working on the game when it was canceled. The outlet’s sources said that the platform fighter was similar to Super Smash Bros. Melee and it was set in the League of Legends universe. This would’ve been another game from Riot where they would’ve supported the esports scene which the FGC could use right now.
Riot Games did say in a statement to ReaderGrev that the studio always has a number of projects in various phases and some do get turned down multiple times a year.
“We always have a number of projects in various phases of R&D, and spinning projects up and down happens multiple times a year”
Pool Party may have been ahead of its time for Riot as they have their 2v2 team-based fighter, 2XKO which has no relation to the canceled project. It will be interesting to see if the developer will pursue Pool Party again down the road once they get entrenched in the fighting game scene.
Source: ReaderGrev
