Almost six years since its announcement, and with hardly anything said about it since, Riot Games’ mysterious League of Legends MMO has been referred to as the studio’s “Grail” in comments that aren’t exactly inspiring the most confidence from fans.
Riot Games co-founder and co-chairman Marc Merrill has spoken about the MMO during a PAX West panel, where he was asked by Kinda Funny Games’ Greg Miller whether he had anything to share about its release date (below).
Alas, Merrill doesn’t, but he does speak a little about the game’s thought process. “We know what players’ hopes and dreams are,” he begins, adding that it’s all up to Riot whether the team can “succeed in the execution.” No pressure for the devs, then, but Merrill calls it “a worthy quest.”
“We jokingly call it the Grail internally because we’re like, ‘fuck it,’ you know, many a brave knight are going to die on the Grail quest. But fuck it, it’s the Grail, so let’s go,” Merrill continues. “That’s the mindset that we really try to cultivate and that is hard to do at scale. But, you know, I think we’re doing a reasonable job and I think the future’s incredibly bright.”
It’s not the only promising news we’ve heard about the Riot MMO recently – earlier this year, it was announced that yet another World of Warcraft veteran had joined the development team, which bodes well. Before that, Merrill had stated that the idea of “making the next great MMO” is something that Riot is “more committed to than ever.” But a more recent announcement to come from the home of League of Legends doesn’t have fans feeling optimistic.
After its full console launch in January, it was announced last month that League of Legends fighting game 2XKO is ending active development in December. While it’ll remain playable, Riot said “we haven’t seen enough players stick with the game to get to a path toward sustainability,” and ultimately couldn’t see “any viable future.”
The changes made to digital card game Legends of Runeterra back in 2024 are also fresh in many players’ minds. At the time, Riot stated that the game had “faced financial challenges since launch, costing significantly more to develop and support than it generates,” and, as a result, was “reducing the size of our team and renewing our focus on The Path of Champions,” with a focus on PvE.
Needless to say, you can understand the distrust online regarding Merrill’s latest comments about the MMO. “Hard to be excited for this because I wouldn’t be surprised if Riot just cuts the team in half and then end support after less than a year when the League MMO doesn’t have numbers like WoW or FFXIV within the first month based on how they’re treating 2XKO,” one user responds on Twitter.
“Hope this time you don’t cancel it HALF A YEAR after release because it doesn’t have the playerbase of WoW and FFXIV COMBINED,” another says, while one tweet asks: “Didn’t you guys just kill the fighting game that was barely released. What confidence are we supposed to have in an MMO?”
For now, we’re stuck watching this space, but hopefully the League of Legends MMO is able to meet the expectations of fans and its devs alike whenever it does eventually launch.