Riot Games might be best known as the development studio behind League of Legends, but it looks like development on new projects is stepping up. Earlier today, fighting game developer Mike Zaimont shared an email from the company in which a representative dropped hints about its future plans.
In a screenshot attached to the tweet, the representative told Zaimont that “I’m reaching out to you because we’re looking for experienced game designers to create amazing combat and social experiences in our new fighting game.” Riot’s fighting game, called Rising Thunder, is no secret, and Zaimont’s experience as a fighting game player and developer would make him a decent fit. But that’s not what’s most interesting.
The email goes on to say that Zaimont would “be playing a huge part in Riot’s multigame future and could be impacting millions of players.” Which while potentially just corporate-speak, could also be one of the studio’s strongest statements of future intent so far.
Riot’s roster has certainly grown with the recent arrival of Teamfight Tactics and the confirmation of that fighting game. Given, however, that one of those is just a spin-off mode within League of Legends’ client and the other is likely to be in the very earliest stages of its development, I’d hesitate to say that Riot counts as a “multigame” studio.
Until recently, Riot’s been a purely LoL-based developer, but over the past few years, more and more hints about its future plans have surfaced. Those range from MMO-related queries to confirmation that new games are in the works, but for now at least, the team is keeping pretty quiet about whatever’s coming next.