Former Washington Post reporter Mikhail Kimentov reports that Riot Games scrapped a Smash Bros. style game set in the League of Legends world.
Key art of Ashe from League of Legends, (2009) Riot Games
Kimentov’s report at ReaderGrev claims the game was codenamed Pool Party and had 70-80 employees working on it before it was shut down at the end of May.
As for the specifics of the game, Kimentov shared, “Sources familiar with the project described the original pitch for Pool Party as a platform fighter in the vein of Super Smash Bros. Melee set in the League of Legends universe.”
Riot Games’ Senior Communications Director Joe Hixson neither confirmed nor denied the report, but stated, “We always have a number of projects in various phases of R&D, and spinning projects up and down happens multiple times a year.”
Key art of Jinx from League of Legends, (2009) Riot Games
Nevertheless, one of Kimentov’s sources claims the game was scrapped due to the commercial failure of Smash Bros. competitor MultiVersus.
Kimentov reported, “According to sources familiar with the project’s development, executives at Riot were spooked by what they perceived as the failure of MultiVersus, a free-to-play fighting game starring characters from franchises owned by Warner Bros.
Key art of Conqueror Varus from League of Legends, (2009) Riot Games
MultiVersus opened its Open Beta back at the end of July in 2022 and saw a massive amount of players quickly check out the game. Steam DB reported the game had peak concurrent players of 153,433 when it first went into Open Beta.
However, by the end of August 2022, the player base had seemingly abandoned the game with peak concurrent players dropping to 28,329 on August 29th. The game would stay in Open Beta for almost a year eventually being shut down in June 2023. At the time the player base had dwindled to 553 peak concurrent players.
The game went fully live at the end of May earlier this year and it had a significant influx of players, but still a far cry from the initial Open Beta. The game’s peak concurrent players hit 114,515 players. However, it has since dwindled to below 6,000 concurrent players as of the last 24-hours.
MultiVersus Steam DB charts
What do you make of Riot Games scrapping this project in the wake of MultiVersus struggles?
NEXT: Riot Games Co-Chairman Explains Why Studio Is Resetting Development Of ‘League of Legends’ MMO
