The League of Legends MMORPG has been eagerly awaited by fans for years. Now, however, another key member of the development team has announced his departure.
Since it was announced in 2020 that Riot Games is working on an MMORPG set in the League of Legends universe, fans have been eagerly following the progress of the development team. After Game Director “Ghostcrawler” already left the team, now another bandwagoner announced his departure.
Principal Game Designer takes leave
On April 14, Justin “Xenogenic” Hanson announced his departure from Riot Games.
Today is my last day at Riot.
Emotions are a hell of a thing. Very sad to be leaving, on the one hand, yet excited for a new adventure on the other.
The MMO team is absolutely world-class. It”s been such an honor to be able to be a part of it.
– Xenogenic (@Xenogenic) April 14, 2023
Hanson most recently worked as “Principal Game Designer” on the planned role-playing game. Prior to that, he also served as “Design Lead.” In short, he played a pretty central role in the creation of the new game.
However, Xenogenic is not the first important person to leave the project in the middle of the development phase.
Veteran developer Greg Street (“Ghostcrawler”) already announced his resignation at the beginning of March, causing many fans to start worrying about the state of development of the highly anticipated MMORPG.
Is the Riot MMORPG soon to be on hold?
As a rule, game developers do not leave a project until the work on a game has been completed and the game has been released.
So leaving in the middle of the development phase is, in principle, rather a bad sign.
Even though both Xenogenic and Ghostcrawler affirmed that the MMORPG is in good hands, many fans are worried about the game”s future.
Former Blizzard and Riot developer Candace Thomas took time in a thread on Twitter to reassure fans a bit.
A lot of people are asking me if there”s blood in the water at Riot. You”re worried about the mmo. Why are so many people “jumping ship?”
TLDR: Relax, this is normal.
Enjoy the thread:
– Candace Thomas (@candacerthomas) April 15, 2023
She reports a lot of financial pressure and job offers after first making their mark on the scene.
Since Riot only hires the best of the best, according to Thomas, it”s not uncommon for top-notch developers to be poached or to start their own companies.
According to her thread, working from a home office, which became established during the Corona pandemic, is also a reason for many employees to change jobs.
In their opinion, there is no reason to worry about development and Ghostcrawler and Xenogenic also seem to have deepest confidence in the team and their former colleagues.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen what will happen next with the League of Legends MMORPG.
