Riot Games has reportedly cancelled a League of Legends platform fighter codenamed "Pool Party" that was inspired by Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Although most gamers would probably agree that League of Legends is a little hard to get into for more casual players, that viewpoint has slowly changed over the past few years. Not only did Arcane act as a great introduction to the game's world that doesn't even need you to play it, but there's also 2XKO (previously known as Project L), which lets League of Legends characters duke it out in a fighting game.
It seems that Arcane and 2XKO aren't the only ways that Riot was looking to expand the world of League of Legends, however, as it was also reportedly working on an unannounced platform fighter set in the game's world. If that sounds great to you too, then you might want to brace for bad news as the project has seemingly been cancelled.
Riot Has Reportedly Cancelled A League Of Legends Platform Fighter
This news comes courtesy of The Washington Post's Mikhail Klimentov, who shared the report on his own website. According to Klimentov, the platform fighter was codenamed Pool Party and was cancelled by Riot in late May. Between 70 and 80 employees were working on Pool Party when development was stopped.
Klimentov's sources claim the project was pitched as a platform fighter similar to Super Smash Bros. Melee, but set in the world of League of Legends. The specific focus on Melee is interesting, as Riot was reportedly looking to build an esports community like that game has, something that Nintendo doesn't do much of.
Those same sources also suggested Pool Party was cancelled because executives at Riot had reassessed consumer appetite for a Smash competitor after perceiving MultiVersus' relaunch as a failure. It seems the project had changed a lot over the course of development, as it was originally pitched as a hardcore fighting game and then shifted to include party game elements.
“We always have a number of projects in various phases of R&D, and spinning projects up and down happens multiple times a year."
Half of the developers who were working on Pool Party have received an offer to be reassigned within Riot, while others are attempting to find new positions using the internal job board. It's not clear how far along the project was in development, but it seems like it must have had a decent amount of work done to it to have such a large development team affected.
