ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF PC GAMES

News

Riot's first game after League of Legends is going to be niche, have longevity and might be an MMO (but it also might not)

Riot's first game after League of Legends is going to be niche, have longevity and might be an MMO (but it also might not)

We now have some really - really - vague ideas about what Riot's next game is going to be. 

The studio's co-founder Marc Merrill recently spoke to Variety and gave some hints as to what Riot is working on. The game maker was asked about a tweet he put out in July, asking whether the company should make an MMO, and said that ultimately it is looking into lots of different game types.

“The reality at Riot is that we are exploring lots of different games,” he said.

“We have a whole bunch of RND teams exploring different opportunities that we think would resonate with players.”

Asked directly whether Riot is making an MMO, Merill said: “I’m not going to answer that directly. The question that is really interesting and relevant is, ‘What does the future of MMOs look like?’ I think we have a view, others have a view, players have a view. World of Warcraft continues to be a dominating game. There is a really good argument that going head-to-head with ‘WoW’ may not be the best move, but who knows. We’re exploring a lot of stuff, thinking about a lot of stuff.”

Ultimately, Riot is looking to make something niche that pleases a certain market - much like League of Legends.

"Like with ‘League of Legends’ we’re not going to try and please everyone or do things even oriented to a mass market,” Merrill said.

“We think of League of Legends as a niche market that’s really focused.”

He continued: “There are lots of games people buy and play on the App Store, Steam library, on consoles. That creates a lot of interesting questions and challenges, but we focus on what would be worth someone’s time. That’s the only type of game we want to create: games with longevity — that’s worth your time.”

Merrill and fellow co-founder Brandon Beck announced in October 2017 that they would be returning to game development


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.