Runeterra-based Riot MMO hits development hitch, "going dark" for "several years"

The Riot MMO project will be scrapping whatever progress that has been made in terms of development till Q1 2024. After a few months of radio silence, Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill took to X this week to share some bittersweet news for followers of the yet-to-be-titled Riot MMO. The League of Legends playerbase, including those who liked Arcane, is looking forward to this upcoming MMO.

Notwithstanding the growing consumer base in need of a new AAA MMO title set in Runeterra, some naysayers expected the project to go nowhere. Are the naysayers right? Is the project getting canned altogether? The answer is no to both questions.

---

Riot Games co-founder shares news on "resetting" the development path for Riot MMO

Marc Merrill, the chief Product Officer of the League of Legends brand, opened up about Riot MMO's current state of development via a series of tweets.

According to the tweets, the untitled MMORPG is changing the direction of its development. Here are the key points to consider with the development 'reset':

• The 'initial vision' of the Riot MMO does not reinvent the wheel with its game formula, and the developers want to do something different from the standard MMORPG gameplay loop players expect today.
• Some role-shuffling is underway in the Riot Games MMO division's upper management. Executive Producer Vijay Thakkar will be stepping into a more specific Technical Director position.
• Riot MMO will now be supervised by newly elected Executive Producer Fabrice Condominas. There are a few feathers in Fabrice's hat as Lead Producer, including games from BioWare and Electronic Arts (Star Wars: Squadrons).
• The public development diary will go silent 'for a long time—likely several years.'

---

Is Riot MMO about to enter development hell?

The sudden news of this radical 'reset' of Riot MMO's development has raised some eyebrows. It has now become commonplace for MMOs and live-service spinoff titles to undergo a rigmarole of delays and pivots. The biggest example of late is Skull and Bones, which spent a whole decade in the brig.

That said, Riot MMO is certainly not headed in the same direction as Ubisoft's derelict Black Flag spinoff hobby project.

It is a development pivot, but one for the better. It appears the direction they were going with was World of Warcraft with a Runeterra-themed coat of paint. But now, under a new Executive Producer, the development team is eyeing a 'significant evolution' of the MMORPG genre. Time will tell if they attain this lofty goal. For the time being, 'no news is good news,' says Marc Merrill.