Riot Games had ambitious plans to expand into fighting games, but their platform fighter was eventually canceled. Mikhail Klimentov of ReaderGrev broke this story, citing studio employees.

The codename of the project was Pool Party and it was worked on by a team of 70-80 people. It was a platform fighter with League of Legends characters in the vein of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Melee, where players not only had to defeat their opponents but also knock them off the arena. 

Riot Games initially wanted to fill the esports niche with this game, considering Nintendo's stance towards tournaments for its own games, but eventually abandoned this idea. The employees who worked on the title have been reassigned to other projects. The main reason cited is the failure of Multiversus, another platform fighter featuring characters from Warner Brothers franchises.

Despite this, Riot Games continues to work on a traditional fighting game set in the League of Legends universe called 2XKO. The studio is conducting closed testing for the new game, with a full release planned for 2025.

Main image: League of Legends

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