Riot cancelled plans for its own Smash Bros-style game after MultiVersus flopped

Riot has been working on its own 2D League of Legends fighting game for years now, set to launch next year under the title ‘2XKO'. As it turns out, the company also had its own Smash Bros style fighting game in development under the codename ‘Pool Party', but it was cancelled after seeing the reception to WB's MultiVersus. 

Smash Bros is a legendary fighting game from Nintendo, featuring platform levels, and a lengthy list of guest characters from various IP across the Nintendo spectrum, as well as guest characters from other major game franchises like Final Fantasy, Sonic, Persona, Metal Gear and more. Riot Games was considering its own similar platform fighter, with characters from across Riot's games, including fan favourite League champions.

However, according to a report on ReaderGrev, Riot ultimately cancelled plans for ‘Pool Party', which was being developed by a team of around 80 employees. The game was scrapped in May, shortly after evaluating the launch of Warner Bros' similar cross-IP fighting game, MultiVersus, which has struggled to achieve heights similar to Smash Bros.

It seems that Riot doesn't see enough “appetite” for a new Smash Bros style game. While Riot has not officially confirmed that Pool Party was in development, the company did comment on the report, saying that it often has unannounced projects “in various phases of R&D” and “spinning projects up and down happens multiple times a year”.

That statement does sound like confirmation that there is something to this story. However, it doesn't sound like Pool Party was in development for very long.

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KitGuru Says: Do you think Riot could have succeeded with a Smash Bros style fighting game? Or do you think they should keep the focus on their new competitive fighting game, 2KXO? 

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