Is the Riot MMORPG Dead Before It Even Started?

The Riot MMORPG was a hot topic in the past years until the core community who was most looking forward to its release suddenly declared it a “failed project” before it was even released. Despite not having anything to refer to, there is an absolute argument to be made that the game won’t make it into completion. What caused such a premature assumption and why is there a good chance that Riot Games will scrap the project?

The Beginning of the Riot MMORPG Project

When Riot Games announced a hint of developing its own MMORPG, the entire League of Legends community and even a lot of people who didn’t play the game became really hopeful that they’ll receive a game worth spending hours every day playing. With Riot Games’ extremely developed world-building and good reputation for story-telling, it was supposedly guaranteed to be a success.

The people wanted to cling to the idea that this game would be a massive success so much that they needed a guarantee to tell the community that it was going to be the case. Luckily, there was something they could cling on to – Ghostcrawler. This person had a history of creating the best World of Warcraft expansions and led Riot Games to an era of higher success. With him leading the team, there was no way the project would fail.

The “End” of the Riot MMORPG Project

For a couple of months, Ghostcrawler would share his thoughts with the community on how he would create the best MMORPG in history. He shared his thoughts and would reassure the community, even answering some doubts from the community on social media. Until one day, he announced that he will be stepping down not only from his position as lead game designer but Riot Games as a whole. He claimed that the reason was because he wanted to work closer to his family.

Him stepping down shouldn’t have made such a huge impact. However, he would announce months later that he was also starting his own game development company that would create its own MMORPG to compete against the one Riot Games was creating. This created a massive rift within the community since people believed that Riot Games would not only fail to create something good, Ghostcrawler’s MMORPG would also prove to be a way better game.

League of Legends fans who didn’t know much about Ghostcrawler would continue to support and anticipate the release of the Riot MMORPG. There are still millions of people around the world who would play the game on release. However, the hardcore MMORPG community and loyal supporters of Ghostcrawler would have a different opinion about the matter and take to forums and social media to convince people otherwise.

There are various discussions on why the Riot MMORPG has already failed with Ghostcrawler not only leaving the team but also making a competing title. The argument places its weight entirely on the fact that Riot Games wouldn’t have a competent successor to replace Ghostcrawler and create a game that the fans would play. It also tries to convince people that Riot Games has lost all confidence with the negativity floating around.

Is Riot Games Canceling the MMORPG Project?

Riot Games would definitely cancel the MMORPG if they believe that there is no longer enough interest for people to play the game. With Ghostcrawler leaving and creating a competing MMORPG, there is no doubt that thousands of players would no longer be interested in Riot Games’ project. Unfortunately for the people who are wishing for Riot Games’ failure, that doesn’t really matter and will not have any effect on the fact that Riot Games will continue to push the project.

The reason that Riot Games probably won’t care is because millions of fans around the world who don’t know about Ghostcrawler and/or are oblivious to this issue existing will still download the game on release. Riot Games has established a core community that would play any game they release as long as it’s free-to-play. This assumption is bolstered by the fact that Riot Games was able to make VALORANT succeed despite tens of thousands of hardcore CS:GO & FPS fans trashing the game every chance they got.

Thousands of players might care enough to say the project has failed but unless they can reach out to millions of Riot Games users before the game is released, the MMORPG will most likely have a successful launch. Riot Games might have lost a bit of confidence in the beginning but they’ll still realize that a smear campaign isn’t enough to drop the expected playerbase down to an amount where they should be worried.

If Riot Games does end up canceling the Riot MMORPG, it would put a huge blemish in their reputation. They aren’t the type of company who likes having failed games under their belt. They even separated Riot Forge from the main company to ensure that the quality of games they release under the parent company are always up to standard. It’s highly unlikely they’ll just give up on the project after giving millions of people hope.

The Future of the Riot MMORPG

The only thing that will cause the Riot MMORPG to fail is if Riot Games makes a massive mistake that would cause their expected fanbase to lose interest. That is why Riot Games is extremely cautious on what information they want to release. Since the game is in a development stage, they need to make sure that they only tease parts of the game that they are 100% confident to give out.

Needless to say, any MMORPG would require at least 5 years of development to reach a decent level and with the quality we are expecting, it might be closer to a 10-year release. There’s too much time between today and the expected release date for anybody to make a conclusive assumption that we should just wait until we see more out of the project to start dooming on the game.