Since 2020, it has been known that Riot Games is working on an MMORPG set in the world of League of Legends . But in 2023, bad news is piling up for the LoL MMORPG. After the head, Ghostcrawler, a second key person is also leaving: Principal Game Designer Justin Hanson.
What is the bad news?
- Justin Hanson is leaving the project. On April 14, he announced: That was his last day at Riot Games (via twitter).
- Hanson was one of the key people for the game alongside Game Director Ghostcrawler.
- Since March 2021, he has been working as the “Principal Game Designer” on the MMO; previously, he was the “Design Lead” on the Monetization Team of LoL. As Principal Game Designer, Hanson worked on the vision of the new MMO and laid the foundations of development: he was therefore a crucial figure in the creation of a game.
Why is he leaving? Hanson speaks of a “new adventure that excites him” – he is apparently moving to a new company and a new project.
He says, however, that the MMO team is “absolute world-class.” It has been an honor to be part of it.
Why is this bad news? Normally MMORPG developers leave a game after release when the work is done and it seems tempting to start anew elsewhere.
The fact that key people are dropping out while still in development is not a good sign.
In other games like Anthem or Destiny, the departure of central leaders during development created a vacuum that caused lasting problems. Players felt these problems 3 or 4 years later.
Such key employees are essential for a game, especially because only relatively few people work on such a project in the early phase to lay the groundwork before the team is expanded in the years leading up to release.
Now would be the time for a statement from Riot Games on how they plan to compensate for the departure and move forward.
The Corona pandemic leads to rethinking among gaming developers – Home Office attracts
What’s behind it: It is unclear which project Hanson is moving to – it seems likely that he will join Ghostcrawler at his project.
Greg ‘Ghostcrawler’ Street had announced plans to start a gaming studio that works “entirely from home” so that people can be with their families. This seems to be a major trend in the USA since the Corona pandemic, also at Riot Games.
Many gaming developers have reassessed their lives during the Corona pandemic and decided to either leave the industry entirely or switch to small, family-run companies that are more personal and give them more freedom, especially regarding ‘remote work’.
Riot Games has already stated that they have been affected by this trend, leading to significant problems with LoL: Many left the team, and the quality of the PC version of LoL declined in 2022 and 2023, while they want to recruit new employees and reorganize the teams.
It is quite possible that after Ghostcrawler, Hanson also decided against working in a large studio with mandatory office presence and for working from home:
Developer explains why LoL is currently in a poor state on PC: ‘Many employees quit during Covid’
