Riot has “reset” the event of its League of Legends MMO, based on cofounder and CPO Marc Merrill. Posting on Twitter, Merrill confirmed that “sure, we’re nonetheless engaged on the sport,” however that the undertaking has been set again to its early phases to pursue a brand new design path. The choice was made “a while in the past,” based mostly on the studio’s feeling that the in-development MMO, set within the League of Legends’ Runeterra world, was too just like its rivals. “The preliminary imaginative and prescient simply wasn’t totally different sufficient from what you possibly can play at present,” Merrill stated. “We don’t consider you all need an MMO that you simply’ve performed earlier than with a Runeterra coat of paint.”
Hey all – We all know a lot of you might be hungry for information concerning the @riotgames #MMO undertaking, and we actually recognize your endurance and the unimaginable assist you’ve got proven us to date. I’m writing to replace you at present on the place we’re at. And earlier than anybody panics: sure, we’re nonetheless engaged on…March 20, 2024
The MMO’s growth is now being led by Fabrice Condominas, government producer at Riot and former manufacturing lead at BioWare and EA. Condominas, Merrill stated, is changing Technical Director Vijay Thakkar, who had been main the MMO growth crew for the final 12 months in constructing “key parts of the technical basis” for the sport’s new path. Merrill additionally introduced that Riot can be “going darkish” about its manufacturing, and that it could seemingly be “a number of years” earlier than the studio shares any particulars concerning the MMO. “This silence will assist present area for the crew to concentrate on the unimaginable quantity of labor forward of them,” Merrill stated.
We first discovered concerning the League MMO undertaking in 2020 when Greg Avenue, on the time VP of IP and leisure at Riot and former Lead Techniques Designer on World of Warcraft, casually confirmed by way of tweet that he was engaged on an MMO set within the Runeterra universe. By March 2021, Riot was within the technique of increasing its MMO growth crew, with a recruiting web site saying “MMOs take lots of people to create, and we’ll want a fairly large raid crew if we wish to deliver Runeterra to life.”
Information concerning the sport was sparse till April 2022, when Avenue generated some concern concerning the state of the MMO’s growth by tweeting, unprovoked, that there “isn’t any assure this sport will ship. We’re optimistic, however you simply by no means know till it does.” Realizing that possibly wasn’t probably the most reassuring sentiment to precise with out context, Street followed up with a tweet thread later that April, elaborating that regardless of what “some gamers and media” who “extrapolated that the event was not going properly” would possibly suppose, it was truly “going nice.”
That harm management effort was hampered considerably by Avenue persevering with to say that, even when growth wasn’t going nice, Riot “will not ship a disappointing sport,” so, like, why would you are concerned? “Possibly I’m not the best chief, or this isn’t the best crew, or our design isn’t the best one. However the firm will maintain at it till the sport is worthy of your expectations,” he stated, which—trying again—form of says all of it proper there, actually. Avenue later stepped down from his place at Riot in March 2023, saying the MMO “is in good fingers and it’s the best time at hand over the reigns for the subsequent section.”
There may be, clearly, room for hypothesis right here as as to whether Avenue’s WoW growth historical past might need contributed to a design path that felt too acquainted, contemplating that WoW remains to be probably the most quick MMO measuring stick that jumps to thoughts. Avenue has since launched a brand new studio with Netease named Improbable Pixel Fortress, presently growing one other MMO. Since Merrill’s announcement, Avenue has posted a reaction on Twitter to “want the Riot MMO properly. They’ve a fantastic world to discover and the crew is actually high notch. I’ll undoubtedly play the crap out of it.”