Over the past year and a half, Riot Games has spread its wings. It's built off the success of League of Legends, releasing other games outside of the MOBA genre. Valorant, Teamfight Tactics, and Legends of Runeterra all offer diverse gameplay experiences and have each found unique success. Ruined King, as well as the codenamed Project L and Projekt F, are all the more diverse. But now Riot's apparently ready to start work on its biggest project yet. Riot has confirmed it's working on an MMO.
Considering the scale of such an announcement, one might expect a press event and a trailer. That's not the case, however. An official MMO developed by Riot Games was confirmed via a Twitter reply from VP of IP and Entertainment Greg Street, better known as Ghostcrawler. While talking about a new project currently in development, Street was asked if the project was an MMO. Street's nonchalant response was, simply put, "It is an MMO." That doesn't leave much room for confusion.
For added context, Street started revealing some news on Twitter. He says that his job at Riot has been to develop the League of Legends universe, but that he's moved into a new role. Specifically, his job is now to "kick off a big (some might say massive) game." He also characterizes it as a highly anticipated project both at Riot and in the League of Legends fandom. Obviously, that's not so subtle in the first place. "Massive" rather directly implies an MMO, after all.
Supporting that thought is the fact that fans truly have been clamoring for Riot Games to make an MMO. Just under a year ago, Riot founder Marc Merill responded to a question about a potential MMO by saying that, if Riot were to make one, it wouldn't be "any time soon." It's possible that even then, Riot was laying the groundwork for making an MMO. That may be why it's so willing to share the news, now that it's moving into a new phase of development.
To be clear, the MMO that Riot is working in is clearly insinuated to be based in the League of Legends universe. But it isn't explicitly stated. Street says he's been working to develop the League universe and is now working to kick off this MMO project. There's a possibility that Street's confusing the issue and it's an MMO based on something else entirely. That seems unlikely, but, again, this isn't an official press release or anything.
One of the top replies to Street's confirmation of a Riot-made MMO comes from Riot's Marketing Creative Director, Moosey. She says in her response to Street, "greg don't just TELL them outright omg." As funny as that is, odds are Street's confirmation of Riot's MMO is gone through layers of approval. Hopefully, more news is set to follow from Riot in the months ahead.
Riot's League of Legends MMO is in development.
Source: Twitter, Dotesports