League of Legends maker Riot Games is rolling out a new publishing label called Riot Forge to release new titles in that franchise.
Speaking to PCGamesN, the company's VP of IP and entertainment Greg Street said that this new venture will let indie developer make games based on the League of Legends IP.
"Riot’s current games, both League of Legends and the new games we recently announced, are live games-as-a-service titles that require large teams to support and maintain," Street said.
"Folks at Riot came up with the idea years ago that if we wanted to add single-player games to our portfolio, that we would want to develop those differently, with a far smaller resource allocation on the Riot side.
"We’ve also tried different versions of co-development, but it can be quite complex and doesn’t always provide partners with the right level of freedom, which led us to partnering with studios who are experts in their genre. They get to own and create these games and we take the role of a traditional publisher, giving them flexibility and freedom to use their talent and do what they do best – make awesome games.
"In essence, Riot Forge lets us publish high-quality indie games that use the League IP and get them in front of both League players and players who might love our universe, but aren’t active MOBA players."
The head of Riot Forge Leanne Loombe added: "There are tons of people at Riot who love to play indie games, and we know there are a ton of indie game fans around the world! We want to give indie developers, who have made incredible games with their unique style, whether it be art, game mechanics or design, the freedom to create new League of Legends games."
This follows League of Legends turning ten in October with Riot announcing six new titles in the world of the hit MOBA including free-to-play card game Legends of Runeterra. The beta release for that title was rather popular on streaming platform Twitch when it was out.