League of Legends developer, Riot Games, has announced that they are working on an unannounced fighting game. This was officially confirmed by Tom Cannon, who happens to be a co-founder of the ongoing EVO fighting game tournament. He also happens to work for Riot Games.
Breaking: EVO founder and Riot employee Tom Cannon has confirmed the worst kept secret in gaming – Riot is officially working on a fighting game, the first game outside of League of Legends for Riot pic.twitter.com/P3BGaVs4u4
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) August 2, 2019
Now, this really shouldn’t come at any surprise. Back during 2016, Riot Games acquired Ton Cannon’s former Studio, Radiant Entertainment. Which was right around the time the company was working on a new 1v1 fighting game called Rising Thunder. A game that was attempting to go against the conventional fighting game grain and do away with special moves among other things. All of this was due to the belief that fighting games should be enjoyed by everyone. A notion that I felt the Rising Thunder was on the right track. Then it went away.
Once the acquisition happened, many have speculated that Riot Games did this for a specific reason. The Cannon Brothers are well known among the fighting game community. Not just for EVO but also being the duo that gave the world the GGPO or “Good Game Peace Out. A middleware that has been incorporated in countless fighting games to provide a near lag-less experience. Some of your favorite fighting games have likely used GGPO.
For some time, Riot Games has never confirmed they were working on a fighting game. Officially, they still haven’t. Of course, Tom Cannon isn’t one to talk nonsense. So when he says it, you better believe he’s being honest. Even more interesting is that Seth Killian is also attached to this. Another name that is widely known in the FGC from his days at Capcom, another co-founder of EVO and also worked at Radiant Entertainment.
Whatever this game is, it’s got a lot of talent behind it so far. I’d love to know how far along this game is. As you can imagine, outside of this confirmation, nothing else is known about this unannounced game. As for Riot Games, they know their stuff. Having cornered the MOBA scene with League of Legends, I wonder what sort of impact they could make in the FGC.
EVO 2019 is currently underway and will continue all weekend. It’s also a great place to make an announcement if it’s regarding a fighting game. I wonder how many we’ll hear about over the course the event.
