The League of Legends-themed MMORPG that Riot has been developing for several years will be “resetting” and moving in a new direction. That means, the company says, that we won’t be hearing about it again for quite some time – potentially several years.
Riot cofounder and chief product officer Marc Merrill made the announcement on X (formerly Twitter), explaining why the League of Legends MMO needed a change of course.
“The initial vision just wasn’t different enough from what you can play today,” Merrill explains. “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.”
Fabrice Condominas, who previously worked at EA and BioWare, will be taking the reins as the new executive producer for the project, while former executive producer Vijay Thakkar will be taking on a new role as technical director.
A year ago, Merrill reassured fans that Riot’s MMO was still on track when former Riot VP Greg Street announced he was leaving the company. At the time, Merrill expressed confidence in the game’s direction, while emphasizing that it was still very early in development – far too early for any talk of release dates.
This latest announcement certainly pushes the window back significantly, but it sounds like the right move for Riot to make: MMOs are plentiful today but are broadly stuck in mechanical ruts, and having a Runeterra MMO follow in those well-worn footsteps would doubtless be a major letdown.
Looks like we’ll be stuck playing the base MOBA in the meantime, so I’d suggest checking out our LoL tier list to ensure you stay ahead of the curve.
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