Former gaming journalist Mikhail Klimentov reported news on his personal website, citing internal sources at Riot Games that the studio has canceled the “Pool Party” project, a game in the style of Super Smash Bros., back in May.
This project was separate from Project L, a fighting game announced in 2019 which was recently officially named 2XKO with a planned release in 2025. The gameplay format is a team-based 2×2 fighting.
On the other hand, Pool Party was a Super Smash Bros.-style game using characters from League of Legends to battle, focusing on esports. The development team consisted of around 70-80 people before the project was scrapped. Most employees were reassigned to other company projects, while about 10 were let go.
Klimentov’s sources revealed that one reason Riot Games decided to cancel this project was due to the lack of success of Warner Bros.’ similar game, MultiVersus.
Riot Games representatives responded vaguely, mentioning they had several R&D projects experimenting with game concepts, some of which did not work out and had to be changed.
TLDR: Riot Games halted the “Pool Party” project, a Super Smash Bros.-style game with League of Legends characters, due to various factors including the lack of success of similar games and internal experimentation with game concepts.
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