Riot Games has now confirmed that a League of Legends MMO is finally in the works, so here’s everything we know about the LoL RPG title so far, including raids.
The League of Legends universe has been exploding over the past year, with Riot adding auto-battlers, card games, adventure title “The Ruined King,” and even a fighting game to their ever-expanding roster for the world of Runeterra.
Now, they’ve reached the natural endpoint; a massively multiplayer online game, like WoW or Star Wars: The Old Republic, set in the LoL universe.
In late 2019, League founder Marc Merrill actually teased plans for an MMORPG. Twelve months later, Riot vice president, Greg Street, officially — and rather quietly, confirmed Riot was indeed in the process of developing perhaps the most anticipated League of Legends title ever.
Here’s everything we know about Riot’s new League of Legends MMO.
Contents
- Is there a League of Legends MMO release date yet?
- What do we know about regions in League of Legends MMO?
- Is there a League MMO game map?
- What do we know about classes in the LoL MMO?
- Will the LoL MMO have Raids?
Is there a League of Legends MMO release date yet?
Unfortunately, Riot Games has yet to give the League of Legends MMO an official release date. Lead producer, Gregg Street, previously told the world that Riot was hard at work on a new project, which also called for several job applications.
That means the LoL devs are probably still early in the process, with anything major still in the ‘theory’ phase. There’s a few possibilities here, however. One is Riot was already hard at work on the MMO long before Street made his announcement.That could bring the timeline up a little, and potentially set up a late 2023 or early 2024 release date for the game. More likely, however, is that we’re looking at sometime in mid-2024 for the huge LoL title.
Once Riot gets a more solid idea of when they could release an alpha build for their title, we’ll likely hear more news. We’ll update this article when something drops.
What do we know about regions in League of Legends MMO?
While there are no details as of yet regarding what regions we will see in the League of Legends MMO, there are thirteen named areas that Riot currently picks champs from, and we’ll likely see these same regions selected for the new MMO title.
The main regions could be more ‘civilized’ areas like Demacia, Noxus, or Piltover, while fantastical regions like Bilgewater, Shurima, and the loveable Bandle City may also be important to the online game. Here’s all thirteen of the regions in Runeterra:
- Bandle City
- Bilgewater
- Demacia
- Ionia
- Ixtal
- Noxus
- Piltover
- Shadow Isles
- Shurima
- Targon
- The Freljord
- The Void
- Zaun
Riot Games may decide to only start with some of these — they selected just eight as “card regions” for Legends of Runeterra — but we’d expect them to eventually add all the iconic League of Legends areas to the planned online game.
Is there a game map for League’s MMO?
There’s been no official confirmation that the League of Legends MMO will copy Runeterra exactly, but we’d be pretty surprised if it didn’t. That means players will be able to navigate around the huge, fantastical land either through fast travel, or simply adventuring across the lands and regions.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
Here’s what the League of Legends MMO’s map may look like in-game:
What do we know about LoL MMO’s classes?
If Riot Games sticks to the same design as other popular MMORPG titles, we can expect to see a healthy collection of “professions,” or classes, that define each player character.
These often boil down to standard fantasy tropes like Fighter, Healer, and Wizard. While LoL is a little different, each champion does fall into similar roles like these, with a little bit of variance between them. These may translate over to the new MMO once it’s released.
Here’s each of the classes and subclasses in LoL at the moment:
- Controller
- Enchanter
- Catcher
- Fighter
- Juggernaut
- Diver
- Mage
- Burst
- Battlemage
- Artillery
- Marksman
- Slayer
- Assassin
- Skirmisher
- Tank
- Vanguard
- Warden
If Riot picks out the six main classes: Fighter, Mage, Marksman, Slayer, Tank, and Enchanter – then that seems like a pretty good set!
As with regions, however, there’s no telling what the League of Legends developers may eventually decide. Riot could choose to forego the LoL classes entirely or pick just a few of the more popular ones to start with. We’ll have to wait and see.
Will the LoL MMO have RPG raids?
Simple answer: yes!
In fact, lead producer Greg Street has admitted that, at least in his eyes, the end-game Raids included in Riot’s new League of Legends MMO RPG will be one of the most important factors. He even added he will be “crushed” if the team fails to deliver on the promise of endgame battles.
“Anyone that knows me from my World of Warcraft dev days would know that I love dungeons and raids as a player,” he added.Riot has yet to unveil what their LoL raids would look like. Dexerto expects to see iconic Summoner’s Rift monster Baron Nashor as one early Raid boss.
Riot warns “not everyone will love” title
In 2021, Riot Games issued a warning about their new League of Legends MMORPG — “not everyone is going to love” the planned open-world Runeterra title and that’s okay; they’re not aiming to make a total-crowd pleaser.
“One thing I can say about the unannounced MMORPG is you won’t all love every feature in it,” the title’s executive producer Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street warned. “We’re going to make some choices that you may not agree with. Players want different things in their games. That’s fine.
Some of you may not love the game at all. Also fine. We will also make a ton of mistakes. However, [we are] prepared to pivot if design doesn’t meet goals.”Riot Games warns not everyone will love their LoL MMORPG, and that's okay."You won't all love every feature. We're going to make choices you may not agree with. Players want different things. Some of you (shudder) may not love the game at all. That's fine."(via @Ghostcrawler) pic.twitter.com/Abfsb7y0Bk
— Dexerto League (@DexertoLeague) May 21, 2021
