MMOs are a unique breed of titles; they encourage constant play in the title with a staggering amount of content, taking advantage of the fear of missing out (known colloquially as FOMO) while also curating communities around who can play through dungeons the best, or perhaps the dabbling in PvP for bragging rights.
It isn’t necessarily a bad genre by any stretch of the term, but it does have the ability to turn off a few older gamers that find themselves settled down with a family unable to log in for long stretches of time.
This coincides with World of Warcraft, by far one of the most popular MMOs in the world, consistently needing to condense servers to keep play populated (although not too much of an issue since the Shadowlands expansion).
Yet the constant allure of content and growing ever stronger is a formidable duo that continues to slurp the souls of gamers, and we definitely aren’t close to having our fill of MMOs that offer spectacular combat and immersive worlds.
So when Greg Street, the VP of Entertainment for Riot Games, quietly stated on Twitter that Riot is officially developing a new MMO world that revolves around the League of Legends universe.
That’s right, it’s finally happening.
I have news!
My recent job at Riot has been to help develop the League universe, which we’re going to need!
Because it is time. My new job is to kick off a big (some might say massive) game that many of you, and many Rioters, have been asking us to create.
PS We’re hiring
— Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 18, 2020
It is an MMO
— Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 18, 2020
We’ll give everyone a moment to compose themselves; the long-requested title appears closer than ever to reality, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who would disagree.
While MMOs are a notoriously fickle genre for developers to hone (just ask Amazon and their New World) and actually come out with brilliant play that offers both a low skill floor paired with a high ceiling and enough content and lore to satiate even the most demanding nerd seeking plot holes and deus ex machina gimmicks.
Yet it should be worth noting that Riot Games has a brilliant history with being able to refine genres to their core, fundamental gameplay loops, and offer that feeling in absolute spades.
League of Legends is easily the most popular esport in the world, refining the popular mod of Warcraft 3 called Defense of the Ancients.
Valorant has succeeded in as much that they’ve successfully rendered a brain-drain in both Overwatch League and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with big names headed over to the new first-person team-based shooter in droves.
So when Riot states that an MMO is officially coming set within the universe of League of Legends, the universe might come to the briefest of standstills while everyone applauds. Pardon the noise.
