The MMORPG of League of Legends is currently highly anticipated by our readers here at MeinMMO. However, Riot Games has been holding back on major announcements so far. What is clear, however, is that after three years, the development has been restarted.
What kind of game is this? An MMORPG set in the League of Legends universe has been on the wishlist of many players for years, especially after “EverQuest Next” and Blizzard’s planned game “Titan” were canceled. From that point on, Riot became one of the last Western studios that could implement an ambitious and successful MMORPG.
At the end of 2020, the LoL MMORPG was officially announced. Greg Ghostcrawler
Street, the former lead designer of WoW, was the mastermind behind the game. However, he has since left the studio and is now working on his own game.
So far, there has not been a comprehensive overview of the game’s features. However, some pieces of content have made their way to Ghostcrawler’s Twitter account, which we summarized for you in this article. With the confirmed restart of development in March 2024, all this information may now be worthless.
The LoL MMORPG in 2025
After Greg Street left the Riot Games team in March 2023, there were evidently problems continuing the previous vision for the LoL MMORPG. A year later, the official confirmation followed: They had decided some time ago to restart the direction of the project.
The reason given by Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill, the head of Riot Games, was that the current version did not stand out enough from the competition.
We do not believe that you all want an MMO that is just a rehash of something you played before, only with a Runeterra twist: To truly honor the potential of Runeterra and to meet the extremely high expectations of players worldwide, we need to create something that feels like a significant evolution of the genre.
This is a significant challenge, but one that our team of passionate MMO players and experienced game developers will tackle with great motivation.
For the restart, they managed to recruit Fabrice Condominas, an industry veteran for the MMO team, who has previously served as a producer for BioWare (notably on Mass Effect 3).
What else is known? After the announcement of the restart, the next silence followed. This was only interrupted in October 2024 by open job postings at Riot, seeking experienced veterans for the MMO. They want to “excite millions of players around the world”.
In November 2024, the head himself provided a small update. Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill stated at the Worlds Finals:
We are working hard on it. It is the project that I am currently investing most of my time in. I believe that the team has now taken a great direction and has been able to build up a lot of momentum. We are well aware of the high expectations placed on us, and we are doing everything we can not to disappoint.
The next sign of life came in July 2025, when new job postings began circulating. According to these, the MMORPG was still in the prototype phase at the time.
A post by Riot CEO Marc Merrill made it clear that the project is still alive today. After the end of New World, he explained that they are always looking for S-tier developers for the current MMORPG.
How the LoL MMORPG was originally meant to be
Riot Games’ new MMORPG is still set to take place in the Runeterra universe. However, it is still unclear what the MMORPG’s combat system will be like and from which perspective it will be played. The following possibilities exist:
- Tab-targeting like in WoW
- Action battles like in ESO
- A first-person perspective like in Mortal Online 2
- Battles in an isometric perspective like in Lost Ark and LoL itself
However, Ghostcrawler made a statement indicating that there must be a really good reason
to question the status quo of camera angles in MMORPGs (via Twitter). This suggests a third-person view similar to WoW.
Ghostcrawler has also made statements about the game’s content. The LoL MMORPG is supposed to focus on dungeons and raids in the endgame. Raids are even expected to become one of the most important factors in the game. Ghostcrawler revealed on Twitter that he would be crushed
if his team did not implement the endgame battles well. He also wrote:
Anyone who knows me from my time as a developer on World of Warcraft knows that as a player, I love dungeons and raids.
While there is no definitive statement regarding the raids, Ghostcrawler himself is a fan of larger groups of 20 to 40 players.
However, the LoL MMORPG should not appeal to every player right from the start. The developers had a clear vision and wanted to make decisions that not every player would agree with. The head believes this is a good thing.
The social components of the game could have provided potential for conflict. Ghostcrawler expressed his puzzlement in a tweet about why someone would want to experience an MMO as a solo player. There should be enough single-player games for this type of player (via Twitter).
The LoL MMORPG is therefore expected to focus on group content. However, many of the newer MMORPGs, such as Guild Wars 2 or ESO, pay close attention to ensuring that solo players also have their fun.
Release before 2027 considered unlikely
When will the LoL MMORPG be released? So far, there are no concrete details about the release. However, it is clear that the restart in early 2024 has had an impact on the development time. If the developers had to start from scratch, we could be in for another four, five, or six years of patience.
However, if they had a foundation to build on, it would still take at least two or three years until release. Unfortunately, developing an ambitious MMORPG takes a very long time. The following article discusses the 8 most exciting new releases from this year: MMORPGs 2026: The 8 most promising online role-playing games scheduled for release next year
