Riot has “reset” the event of its League of Legends MMO, in keeping with 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 levels to pursue a brand new design course. The choice was made “a while in the past,” primarily based on the studio’s feeling that the in-development MMO, set within the League of Legends’ Runeterra world, was too much like its rivals. “The preliminary imaginative and prescient simply wasn’t totally different sufficient from what you may play right this moment,” Merrill mentioned. “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’re hungry for information in regards to the @riotgames #MMO undertaking, and we actually admire your persistence and the unbelievable help you’ve got proven us up to now. I’m writing to replace you right this moment on the place we’re at. And earlier than anybody panics: sure, we’re nonetheless engaged on…March 20, 2024
The MMO’s improvement is now being led by Fabrice Condominas, government producer at Riot and former manufacturing lead at BioWare and EA. Condominas, Merrill mentioned, is changing Technical Director Vijay Thakkar, who had been main the MMO improvement group for the final 12 months in constructing “key elements of the technical basis” for the sport’s new course. Merrill additionally introduced that Riot can be “going darkish” about its manufacturing, and that it will possible be “a number of years” earlier than the studio shares any particulars in regards to the MMO. “This silence will assist present house for the group to deal with the unbelievable quantity of labor forward of them,” Merrill mentioned.
We first realized in regards to the League MMO undertaking in 2020 when Greg Road, on the time VP of IP and leisure at Riot and former Lead Programs 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 strategy of increasing its MMO improvement group, with a recruiting web site saying “MMOs take lots of people to create, and we’ll want a reasonably large raid group if we need to deliver Runeterra to life.”
Information in regards to the recreation was sparse till April 2022, when Road generated some concern in regards to the state of the MMO’s improvement by tweeting, unprovoked, that there “is not any assure this recreation 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 really “going nice.”
That harm management effort was hampered considerably by Road persevering with to say that, even when improvement wasn’t going nice, Riot “will not ship a disappointing recreation,” so, like, why would you are concerned? “Possibly I’m not the appropriate chief, or this isn’t the appropriate group, or our design isn’t the appropriate one. However the firm will hold at it till the sport is worthy of your expectations,” he mentioned, which—trying again—form of says all of it proper there, actually. Road later stepped down from his place at Riot in March 2023, saying the MMO “is in good fingers and it’s the appropriate time handy over the reigns for the subsequent part.”
There may be, clearly, room for hypothesis right here as as to whether Road’s WoW improvement historical past may need contributed to a design course that felt too acquainted, contemplating that WoW continues to be probably the most fast MMO measuring stick that jumps to thoughts. Road has since launched a brand new studio with Netease named Unbelievable Pixel Citadel, at the moment creating one other MMO. Since Merrill’s announcement, Road has posted a reaction on Twitter to “want the Riot MMO properly. They’ve a fantastic world to discover and the group is actually prime notch. I’ll positively play the crap out of it.”
