In a surprising move, League of Legends developer Riot Games has announced that the company has acquired Radiant Entertainment, the development studio behind fighting game Rising Thunder, sandbox fantasy sim Stonehearth, and the standard-setting GGPO network code.

Radiant's chief executives, Tony and Tom Cannon, issued a statement about this acquisition and about the state of the studios' current projects, and it's mostly good news. Stonehearth (which was successfully Kickstarted back in 2013 and is currently in early access) will continue to be developed "full speed ahead." As for Rising Thunder, the simple to play (and great looking) PC fighting game starring giant robots? Well:

[The Rising Thunder] team will start work on a new game that we’re incredibly excited about. We wish we could say more now, but rest assured you’ll hear more when the time is right. For now, we will be closing the Rising Thunder Alpha on March 18th. Thanks to everyone who participated in the test!

I'm glad that the team behind Rising Thunder is being brought over to Riot, if only because it's always a bummer when acquisitions lead to mass lay-offs. Still, pour one out for all of those mecha. I'll never forget your amazing trash talking, Chel.

Riot is one of the most quickly growing game companies on the planet, and so long as League of Legends continues to be the one of the world's largest games, I don't see that growth slowing down any time soon. While this specific purchase was surprising, it's easy to see why it's a smart move for the company. Radiant has a great deal of both technical and design expertise, with a speciality in competitive games. And while single-player titles like Stonehearth aren't Riot's usual bag, it always pays for large businesses to diversify.

I'm very curious about what the Rising Thunder team will be doing next. All I can do is hope that one day they'll bring back the mechs... and maybe that intuitive keyboard-control scheme, too.

What the fuck?
Rising Thunder was really rad. That bums me out.

Well Looks like Riot wants a fighting game for their universe, and wants it to be easy to pick it up

Fuuuuuuuck Rising Thunder was dope! My stomach hurts after reading the title alone.

Fuck! Rising Thunder was the first fighting game I was really excited about. This is a definite bummer.

Cancelling Rising Thunder seems like an utterly stupid move for them to make. It was a great game, and it fits with Riot's MO.

So Rising Thunder is just done? That's terrible..

Wait what!? Rising Thunder was such a great idea, the game was a lot of fun.

I'm looking forward to the League of Legends fighting game with characters who play suspiciously like Rising Thunder characters.

Hopefully they'll be able to just re-skin Rising Thunder to just have whatever League of Legends characters there are so they don't lose any of the work they've already done.

Woah! I loved Rising Thunder

Bummer. I'm sure they're gonna get paiiiid. But I prefer the rad cast of Rising Thunder than LoL's. I wonder if the "final" version will stay out there for people just to play if they want.

Wow, I backed stonehearth and have been half following it's development for a while, but I never realized it was the same dev behind rising thunder... well truth be told I actually had forgotten rising thunder even existed..

Also the fact that stonehearth has some sort of connection to LoL now makes me want to throw up..

this is almost CERTAINLY what they are doing. Rising Thunder already used moba-like QWER - why not translate those QWER of LOL characters into fighting moves? Sounds like a slam dunk.

I looked up Stonehearth thinking it was a simplistic card game (like Rising Thunder was to fighters), highly disappointed that it isn't the case.

It's worth noting as I did in my forum post about this earlier today that Riot Games itself was fully acquired by Tencent back in December. My friend Kim, who has a PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Cognition recently joined Riot. So they are working on some interesting internal projects.

@mrnuknuk: There's an awful lot of LoL abilities that just won't map to a fighting game in any reasonable manner.

Moreover there are approximately five people who give a shit about the LoL IP, which is at best schizophrenic. Doesn't seem like it gets you anything.

Wow, surprised by the acquisition and also that Rising Thunder was related to Stonehearth. At least Seth is in good spirits, I guess congrats! (...?)

Don't worry, One Must Fall is still a thing that exists...

Makes a lot of sense considering what Rising Thunder was trying to be. I liked the robots personally, but a big complaint a lot of people had about the game involved them so the likely LoL fighter redesign will probably be for the best in courting the mainstream (not to mention it the inherent draw of anything with LoL).

At the time I asked around what IP would be good for a Rising Thunder type game to actually get interest. I guess League qualifies. Certainly big enough, varied enough. It's too advanced for me though, I didn't like how it had like 6 attack buttons. I don't think it's quarter circles that make fighting games hard, it's having 6 attack buttons.

I really enjoyed what Rising Thunder was going for with the simple and intuitive keyboard controls. Here's hoping League of Rising Legends: Thunder is great when it inevitably ships!

I do not like this company being enveloped in to such a big machine like this

I do not want "League of Legends: The Fighters"

LoL fighting game using the RT engine makes perfect sense. Leverage the brand recognition and pair it with incredibly beginner-friendly gameplay design to get MOBA players into fighting games. Also Vlad is piloted by a dog named Zib.

Riot continues to be a scourge on the gaming industry. I'll miss you Rising Thunder.

Rise of Legends here we come.

@salvation122:you might be surprised by how well they can adapt abilities in spirit. Take a look at KI's Arbiter for an example of a fighting game adaptation of a character from another genre entirely done spectacularly.

@dijon: you can play Rising Thunder on a keyboard, a lot of people were doing that on the alpha. Its hook is one-button specials with MOBA-like cooldowns.

I think the main complaint about RT was that nobody liked the IP, so this is definitely a way to go about solving that problem. Man, it could be Rising League of Thunderous Legends that finally makes fighting games crack the mainstream.

Rising Thunder will most likely morph from using rather unknown fighter characters into using League of Legends characters as the roster, which, will make the game arguably more appealing while adding a varied portfolio for Riot.

This makes me angry

Where does it say the game is canned? It just says the Alpha is over.

Damn, Rising Thunder really felt like something unique. With that being said, if they just take that engine with LoL characters, at least it won't be a total loss.

At least we'll always have Drew's stream.

BOO! BOOOOOOO!!! boooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.............

I'm sure Riot appreciates the diplomatically worded article, Austin, but I can't see this as anything but bad news for video games. I'm glad the human beings behind Rising Thunder will get to keep their jobs, but the dismantling of Rising Thunder in order to provide more resources for a MOBA is a disheartening turn of events.

So are they gonna trade in the robots for fantasy characters or?

I was extremely disappointed by this news. I'm hoping the new title will be a fighting game with the same mechanics, but I have no idea. Very, very disappointed.

Money on it being a League of Legends themed fighting game? Pretty good odds lol.

@moregrammarplz: "Bad news for video games" is a hell of a jump to make from a single acquisition. If a single small company being purchased by a larger company (and the continued employment of that small company's staff) is enough to shake edifice of video games, then maybe the foundation isn't so great to begin with, in which case that's where your concern should be aimed.

@salvation122 said:

Even if no one likes the lore or most of the characters, just the fact that the characters are recognizable to people already goes a long way.

People like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat because they know the names and a handful of the central characters. League similarly has characters that people already know by name and recognize.

Amusing note to this: Miller left Riot to work for Radiant, I believe 6 months ago (note he's a well known member of the FGC so I doubt he was a mole meant to bring Radiant back to the mother ship ;)).

Radiant against Dire, aw yeaah.

Not to mention Riot has some of the best character design in the industry. Some of their recent new characters include:

• Doc Brown as a street rat.
• A lamb & wolf incarnation of Death.
• A catfish demon with a New Orleans drawl that swallows enemies whole.

Schizoprenic or not, their characters certainly aren't dull.

I like LoL. I do not like LoL's business model, but considering how much money they make using said business model, I would be shocked if Riot tried anything different in that area.

Honestly didn't see this game doing TOO well in the current fighting game market, so this may be a blessing in disguise for the developer. But the new project had better be damn good to squash all the good will they were generating for the game. Still shocked this occurred. Never would have dreamed this would have happened. Video games always throwing a curve.

I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that video games as a whole will be poorer for the cancellation of Rising Thunder. I had faith in that game and I don't have faith in Riot.

@moregrammarplz: That's also a jump. There is no way to actually say for certain if something would have truly benefited anything with that much certainty for the future. That game could have been another interesting little "experimental" fighting game that would have been boring in the long wrong and have tanked the company. I'm being completely over dramatic here, but that is (was) a possibility here and that company dodged a bullet.

I don't play LoL, but fuck if a PC exclusive League of Legends fighting game with a simplified, keyboard focused control scheme isn't the smartest business move on the planet.

If that isn't what Radiant Entertainment winds up working on, then this is all some weird news.

The game had a lot of potential. Sure, development could have taken a wrong turn somewhere down the line and it could have released as a 'boring little experimental fighting game', but my experience with the game was a wholly positive one. I had no reason to believe it wouldn't be a great full game. It's disappointing to see Rising Thunder squelched under the heel of a giant dev like Riot.

Large companies acquire smaller companies, shutter their projects, and absorb their employees all the time. Some of my favorite apps, websites, and alpha/beta games have died that way. And the end result has never felt worth it to me. Killing a quirky and unique idea in order to further strengthen the momentum of an already-popular, already-pervasive product feels shitty to me.

I'll be the first to celebrate if Rising Thunder's demise turns out to have been a necessity in order for something even better to come out, but you'll have to excuse me for my lack of faith in an outcome that I've never seen happen.

someone has to make league of legends map packs