Riot Games is Working on a Fighting Game

Okay, so, EVO happened over the weekend, and in case you didn’t know, that’s kind of the biggest fighting game tournament in the whole world. It’s a mark of pride to have your game played competitively at EVO, and if you happen to be competing, well… it’s probably going to be one of the highlights of your career. But like any big event that caters to a niche audience, it was more than just a tournament: there were also panels, discussions, reveals, and other cool moments peppered through the event.

The one we’ll be talking about specifically, however, comes from a most unexpected source: Riot Games.

You might know Riot Games as the (mostly awful) developers behind League of Legends, a game that is broadly considered “not a fighting game.” But EVO founder and current Riot employee Tom Cannon broke the news over the weekend that the “worst-kept secret in the universe” was finally being confirmed: Riot Games is working on a fighting game.
 

"The reason we did Rising Thunder in the first place was because we felt like fighting games deserve to be enjoyed by way more people. As big as things are, we think they have the potential to get bigger."

If that quote is confusing, it’s because Rising Thunder was a robot-themed fighting game made by Radiant Entertainment but was acquired by Riot Games in 2016 and subsequently canceled. The decision at the time was moderately baffling, until one drew the rather obvious conclusion that they must have done it in order to get them working on their own fighting game, which we’re like 90 percent sure is going to be set in the League of Legends universe, although that is not confirmed.

Still, this would be the first “real” game Riot Games made outside League of Legends itself, which is kind of a big deal. Assuming it releases anytime in the near future, anyway.