Riot Games, best known for its MOBALeague of Legends, has ventured outside its comfort zone over the years, with an autochess game, a team-based shooter, a digital collectible card game, and even a TV show.
Sources said that around 80 employees were working on the title, but many on staff became frustrated with changes in direction toward “party game” and “casual-friendly” mechanics instead of more a more “hardcore” feel. Executives were then troubled by the apparent failure of the Smash competitor scene, withMultiVersusand others not meeting expectations. (It’s worth noting thatMultiVersuswas in open beta, was removed from stores, andrecently relaunched in 1.0.)
“We always have a number of projects in various phases of R&D, and spinning projects up and down happens multiple times a year,” Joe Hixson, senior communications director at Riot Games, said in a statement to Klimentov.
It’s not uncommon for studios to scrap projects, even far into game development. We’ve heard many of these stories recently, with Rockstar Gamesapparently stopping production on aGrand Theft Auto 5story-based DLCandUbisoft canceling the in-developmentThe Division Heartlandto focus on more established franchises and the newly released first-person multiplayer shooterXDefiant.
Riot has also had a lot of ups and downs recently. For example, it “reset” an in-development MMO,according to a post from co-founder Marc Merrill in March.It also shut down Riot Forgein January, its publishing label focused on hiring indie studios forLeaguespinoffs, and laid off over 500 workers. Riot also has an R&D division that it uses to test possible new projects, so it’s likely that there are many more canceled and delayed titles we don’t know about.
Riot isn’t out of the fighting game scene, though. It’s working on2XKO, a 2v2 team-based fighting game that featuresLeague of Legendscharacters and is due out in 2025.
