After the shutdown of 2XKO, there have been questions if developer Riot Games would continue their other projects connected the League of Legends. For about five years, fans of the League of Legends MOBA have anticipated a massively multiplayer online (MMO) title set within the beloved world of Riot’s most popular title. With so much lore and content connected to the characters and regions of League of Legends, an MMO of some kind has plenty of potential, but we haven’t heard much about it until recently.
Co-founder of Riot Games Mark Merrill had some comments to say about the League of Legends MMO, mainly confirming its continued existence after it was announced back in 2021. Saying that “the future’s incredibly bright” in a talk with Greg Miller at PAX West, Merrill insists the game is being worked on closely by Riot’s various internal teams. However, the sudden update comes after Riot has drawn plenty of criticism regarding the closure of other projects, with fans being skeptical that the MMO will get any more news any time soon.
Like many of Riot Games’ projects, fans feel that the League of Legends MMO was announced far too early, as the game could easily see another several years of development. However, with the company having a variety of internal projects going on at the same time, the confirmation at PAX West is nice to have at the very least. Now, fans can likely expect more news about the title likely by the end of 2026 or early 2027, while it is fresh on everyone’s minds from the co-founder’s statements.
That being said, there are signs that fans will have to wait longer than they might like, with perhaps another long period of silence on the horizon. This is due to news that took place back in January 2026, when Riot Games hired former World of Warcraft producer Raymond Bartos to help guide the MMO project forward. At the time, Bartos is believed to have been brought in for his MMO experience, after Merrill claimed that Riot had gone through a “reset” with their own game in the genre.
According to Merrill, Riot had scrapped their initial plans for the MMO “some time ago,” implying that the 2021 announcement barely reflects the game’s direction anymore. This is a habit Riot Games sometimes does with their projects, not cancelling their work, but restructuring it to fit a different vision when it’s already gone through several stages of development. The reset for the League of Legends MMO apparently took place in 2024, meaning it’s only been two years of development on the new version of the game.
On the one hand, Riot could be using past assets and tools from the first version of the MMO to speed along development of the game after the reset, but going back to the beginning inevitably adds more time to production. Although Merrill says “no news is good news,” as it means developers are hard at work, fans are understandably still frustrated at Riot. Thankfully, both the PAX West information and Merrill comments about the reset confirm that the game is a priority at the studio, marking a far cry since the “no guarantees” statements from the company in 2022.
The biggest question mark about the League of Legends MMO relates to how Riot Games has treated their last big departure from the usual MOBA in 2XKO. This 2v2 fighting game was developed over the course of nearly a decade, going through the same “reset” the MMO is going through right now. Yet, despite the resources poured into its development, the game’s release resulted in a shutdown of continued developed not even a year after 2XKO came out.
2XKO had an impressive gameplay system most fighting game fans enjoyed, with familiar League of Legends characters expressed in fascinating ways through its fast-paced systems. Although a complex title, 2XKO innovated on the fighting game genre by allowing friends to team up and control a character each in a group, sometimes leading to four player matches between two teams. This unique “Duos” feature excited fighting game fans to see the game’s potential evolve over time, with new DLC characters being received well.
At the end of the day, though, the game did not have enough sustainability for Riot to keep supporting it, at least from their words. Layoffs at Riot Games from the 2XKO team made plenty of fans upset, with some claiming that Riot only allowed the game to ship so they could kill it quickly. Some fans hold the same concern for the League of Legends MMO, whose lengthening development time only draws more comparisons to 2XKO. There is a possible future where the MMO comes out, only to lose support if it doesn’t meet Riot’s revenue expectations.
Given how many games in the industry right now are expected to make unrealistic sales numbers, the MMO might be in more trouble than players think. The confirmation of its development is good, but unless it has Riot’s lasting support, it won’t last long considering it exists within a genre that relies on expansions and ongoing content. With League of Legends‘ eternal longevity, Riot Games likely has the means to support the MMO long-term, but it remains to be seen if the confirmed game will receive that kind of backing.
