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Riot is making an MMO—that’s not exactly news, given it’s been technically making one since 2020. But its continued survival has been brought into question because, well, it’s been making one since 2020. Plus, in March of last year, the company hit the reset button on it, which isn’t typically a sign things are going well in an industry that’s rather cutthroat.
There’s still plenty of hope to go around, though—despite some layoffs early last year, Riot’s mysterious MMO is still a bucket list item for its co-founder, Marc Merrill. That’s as per a recent Game File interview with journalist Stephen Totilo. When asked by Totilo if they still thought an MMO was worth its weight in dev time, Merrill says: “Oh yeah. It’s probably the project I personally spend the most time on as well.”
Riot’s got a bit of an uphill battle ahead by my estimation, though, since MMORPGs aren’t really in vogue anymore. Their age has long since given way to live service games, with the 2010s-2015s golden age of new MMOs quite clearly seen in the rear-view. This nostalgia factor isn’t a new element to Merrill. In fact, it seems to be part of why he’s chasing it.
“I think many people who have historically loved MMOs sort of nostalgically look back and wish they could rediscover [them], I think that that is a very worthy experience to try to chase. And it’s really hard to do … You need to have great [intellectual property], you need to have an incredible team, you need to be able to actually create a compelling world that people want to live in.”
It’s got that ‘compelling world’ down pat, at least. I joke with my friends, sometimes, that the best part about playing League of Legends is not playing it, but keeping tabs on its lore, animated shorts, and secondary games. That’s proved triply true with the rip-roaring success of Arcane—my days of MOBA-induced raised blood pressure are mostly over, but boy would I love to go side-questing in Zaun.
“We’ve been investing so much for so long, over time,” Merrill adds. “Sort of growing this world and adding dimensions. People want to run around the world of Runeterra. And so we want to help them do that, in ways that are worth it and meaningful to them.” As for when? “Hopefully before we go to Mars.” Ah.
Honestly, while I’m a little skeptical anyone can properly get an MMO off the ground in the year of our lord 2025, if anyone’s gonna do it, it’ll be Riot. Not because the studio’s got some secret special sauce, but because it’s probably big enough to successfully bankroll a LoL MMO, and the world is established enough to draw people in. If Riot can fund one of the most expensive animated series ever (still cheap by animation standards, though) it can probably endure the early-day wobbles of MMO development.
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Kurt Indovina
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