Something to look forward to: It takes a lot for an MMO to launch and thrive, which is why there are still comparatively few of them compared to other genres of video games. However, League of Legends developer Riot seems to feel it has what it takes to join the ranks of giants like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 – Riot VP Greg Street announced on Twitter that the studio is working on an MMO.
This will be a first for Riot: while League of Legends is a game with a huge playerbase, it's still a MOBA at the end of the day. Even the biggest, most ambitious MOBAs pale in comparison to the smallest and most conservative MMOs, which typically have at least a few hundred players per server, if not thousands.
It will be a massive undertaking, but fortunately, Riot's hefty coffers should allow it to hire on the appropriate talent to turn whatever vision it has for an MMO into a reality. Unfortunately for us gamers and bystanders, it's likely going to be a long while before we hear any concrete information about this project.
I have news!
--- Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 18, 2020
My recent job at Riot has been to help develop the League universe, which we're going to need!
Because it is time. My new job is to kick off a big (some might say massive) game that many of you, and many Rioters, have been asking us to create.
PS We're hiring
As you can see in the embedded tweet above, Street hasn't exactly gone into detail regarding Riot's MMO. Instead, he merely confirmed its existence (in response to a question from Twitter user Richelle), and that he is just now "[kicking] off" the project. In other words, development is in the early stages, and developers are still being recruited.
Nonetheless, a League of Legends MMO has the potential to be pretty exciting. The Runeterra universe is full of rich lore and interesting characters, built up over many years. Giving players the chance to take a deeper dive into that world sounds like a recipe for success, so let's hope things turn out well.