Image: Riot Games
The League of Legends MMO is heading back to the drawing board so Riot can make something more unique.
Riot Games is taking its long-awaited League of Legend MMO back to the drawing board, in a move that will delay the game’s release by, “several years.” Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill announced the news on Twitter/X, affirming that, “we’re still working on the game,” but that the decision to, “reset the direction,” of the MMO had been made some time ago. As a result, it will be, “several years,” before we even hear about the MMO again.
As for why development on the game has been rebooted, Merrill said, “The initial vision just wasn’t different enough from what you can play today,” suggesting that Riot wants to avoid a World of Warcraft-like direction for the League MMO.
League of Legends MMO reboots development, causing further delays
Riot Games is hitting the reset button on its long-awaited League of Legends MMORPG. The game was first announced on Twitter/X all the way back in 2020, as Riot began expanding on the League universe with new videogame spin-offs and tie-in media. This effort was more or less shut down after the company faced financial challenges, leading to mass layoffs and the closure of Riot Forge. Development on the MMO however, is still going forward.
In a tweet discussing the long-awaited MMO four years after its initial announcement, Marc Merrill confirmed that the company had, “decided to reset the direction of the project some time ago,” due to it not being, “different enough from what you can play today.” Merrill elaborated:
We don’t believe you all want an MMO that you’ve played before with a Runeterra coat of paint; to truly do justice to the potential of Runeterra and to meet the incredibly high expectations of players around the world, we need to do something that truly feels like a significant evolution of the genre. This is a huge challenge, but one that our team of deeply passionate MMO players and game development veterans is incredibly motivated to pursue
It sounds like Riot was heading in the direction of using modern MMOs like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 as inspiration, before deciding to create a game that stood on its own two feet instead. This is a rather unexpected move from the company that created VALORANT (inspired by Counter-Strike), Teamfight Tactics (inspired by a Dota 2 mod) and League of Legends itself (Dota). It's likely that Riot is now pursuing a very different MMO flavour for the game.
Merrill confirmed that development on the League of Legends MMO is now being led by Riot executive producer Fabrice Condominas, whose credits include previous stints at BioWare and EA. Don’t expect any news on the MMO for, “several years,” however, as Riot is, “going dark,” about its development until it has something to actually share. Merrill said, “This silence will help provide space for the team to focus on the incredible amount of work ahead of them.”
When we next hear about Riot’s MMO, League of Legends itself could be in a very different place. At the very least, we’ll have 2KXO and Arcane Season 2 by then.
