What is League of Legends Pool Party? Riot's Smash Bros-esque fighting game
A recently surfaced report claims that Riot Games has shelved an unnamed project code-named Pool Party.
The rumored shelved title was a fighting game set in the League of Legends universe. While the shelved project, Pool Party, was intended to be a platform fighter in the style of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, 2XKO (formerly known as Project L) represents a new direction for Riot, being a distinct 2v2 tag-team fighting game that is still under development.
Image Source: Nintendo."Approximately 70-80 employees" from Riot were tasked with this project. According to reports, half of the team members working on it have been reassigned to other projects within the company, while some others are in the process of reapplying via the corporation's internal job board for new employment.
After the cancellation, around half of the Pool Party crew reportedly received offers to work on other Riot projects. The game itself was purportedly approved in an attempt to provide an esports-friendly platform fighting alternative to Nintendo, which regularly suspends Super Smash Bros. tournaments instead of encouraging them.
It is believed that the idea evolved during production, and to the annoyance of certain employees, Pool Party finally included party features and vague "casual-friendly mechanics."
According to a report by Mikhail Klimentov, a reevaluation of customer demand for a Smash competitor contributed to Pool Party's cancellation.
Sources acquainted with the project's progress claim that Riot officials were alarmed by what they saw as MultiVersus's failure—a free-to-play fighting game featuring characters from Warner Bros. properties.