Marc Merrill breaks silence on Runeterra-inspired MMO, project delayed by several years

For over a year now, Riot Games have been in development of an MMO product. Massively-multiplayer online game, MMOs are incredibly popular as a genre, with some of the biggest hits including World of Warcraft and RuneScape. The basis for the genre that makes it so popular is the function of these games that allow massive numbers of players to connect within a game server and play together at the same time. MMOs include an environment for the players to interact with one another, and a system to complete tasks, earn experience and new skills, as well as grow their individual strength within a large, expansive world.

The Highly-Anticipated Riot MMO

Back in 2020, it was confirmed that Riot was working on an MMO title set in their fictional world of Runeterra. Much like their other game titles, Riot always sought to innovate the space as they have done for League of Legends and VALORANT.

After years of waiting, Marc Merrill, Co-Founder and CPO for Riot Games, has announced that while they intended to continue working on the game, they have decided to ‘reset the direction of the project’ a while back.

“We don’t believe that you all want an MMO that you’ve played before with a Runeterra coat of paint […] we need to do something that truly feels like a significant evolution of the genre.”

Merrill also announced that the project would be changing hands, with Fabrice Condominas taking over as Executive Producer for the project. The ex-EA and Bioware veteran is expected to bring

“We’ll be going dark for a long time […] likely several years”

Merrill also confirmed that the reset would coincide with the project “going dark” news-wise for a long time. He confirmed that it would be “likely several years.” His reasoning for the upcoming silence was for the team to “focus on the work ahead of them.” Merrill also asked for trust during the silent phase, assuring that the end result would be something that they hoped players would love.

“Remember, ‘no news is good news,’ as it means we’re hard at work, pouring our hearts and souls into making that we hope you’ll love.”

Credit: Riot Games

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