Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, has reportedly scrapped a Super Smash Bros. style fighting game codenamed ‘Pool Party’. Executives at the company were apparently put off by the performance of MultiVersus, which initially had a successful beta launch but failed to attract more players following its full release.
According to journalist Mikhail Klimentov, Pool Party would’ve been set in the League of Legends universe with gameplay heavily inspired by Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series. Approximately 70-80 developers were working on the project at one stage before its cancellation. Riot Games executives eventually shut the project down after seeing the performance of MultiVersus, another Super Smash Bros. style fighter that, despite launching to millions of players, failed to generate hype or attract more players with its full release.
Pool Party was originally pitched as a more hardcore fighting game before it evolved to include some party game elements and casual mechanics. As it turns out, Riot Games is already developing a hardcore League of Legends fighter called 2XKO (formerly Project L), though it’s unclear if that factored into the studio’s decision to scrap Pool Party. After all, Super Smash Bros. style fighters are a risky gamble these days and it’s understandable why Riot Games might’ve gotten cold feet after seeing MultiVersus dip in player count.
“We always have a number of projects in various phases of R&D, and spinning projects up and down happens multiple times a year,” said Riot senior comms director Joe Hixson in a statement.
Half of the team that was working on Pool Party have reportedly been offered a chance to be reassigned in the studio while others are apparently applying for internal roles – fortunately, it doesn’t seem like the team will face any layoffs. Riot Games already laid off 530 employees earlier this year so another round of terminations wouldn’t be very inspiring.
Source: Mikhail Klimentov
