Riot Games has pulled MMORPG specialist Greg Street from League of Legends . “Ghostcrawler” is now working on a new, yet-to-be-announced project from Riot Games. This could be the MMO that the Riot founder recently raved about. Street is considered a recognized MMORPG expert.
Who is Greg Street? Known as Ghostcrawler, Greg Street was one of the most recognized employees on World of Warcraft from 2008 to 2013. As Lead System Designer of WoW, he was one of the main points of contact for fans and for many years the face and spokesperson of WoW.
Therefore, it was quite a big deal when he left Blizzard to work as the “Lead Game Designer” for Riot Games on League of Legends in January 2014.
For four and a half years, Street was the design lead of League of Legends until he announced his departure from this role on Friday.
MMORPG expert Ghostcrawler in charge of developing new games
What is Street doing now? Ghostcrawler says he has known for several weeks that he would be pulled from LoL. He will now be the chief creative officer for development at Riot.
He says it has been announced that Riot Games wants to make more games than just LoL, and he is now helping with these efforts.
What could be behind it? It seems reasonable to assume that Ghostcrawler is meant to be in charge of developing an MMO set in the world of League of Legends, Runeterra.
A lot has been invested in this world in recent years at Riot Games, and they are visibly proud of what has been created there.
Recently, a “thought experiment” of one of the Riot founders went public about what it would be like if Riot were to develop an MMO. This generated significant approval among MMO fans. Some thought Riot might already have something in the works.
However, Riot then rowed back, stating it was just an invitation for fans to imagine what the future of Riot Games could look like.
New food for MMO speculation? Ghostcrawler’s transition, a recognized MMORPG expert, to this new role seems to give new life to these ideas.
But the new project is not yet confirmed.
What could the new game be that the LoL developers are working on?
What could this new project be? There are many indications that Riot is indeed venturing into an MMO set in the world of League of Legends.
The exact details are unknown. There are essentially four major possibilities:
- a classic MMORPG like World of Warcraft
- a sandbox MMORPG focused on PvP
- a MMO hybrid with action elements like Destiny or Anthem
- or a MMO with hack’n slash elements like Lost Ark or a continuation of Diablo.
Who will take over for Ghostcrawler at LoL? Riot has announced that developer Andrei Van Roon is the new design lead for League of Legends. He is known as “Meddler”. He was previously the “Lead Gameplay Designer.”
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