On February 22, 2021 Riot games uploaded their MMO recruiting webpage. It’s headline reads, “Yes, it’s true… We’re Making an MMO”.
What’s almost as exciting as this news is the massive background image. The image is a young Cithria of Cloudfield. She looks like she’s just arrived at the City of Demacia. Now if you’ve read our Cithria of Cloudfield page, you’d know she’s looking to enlist in the Army. Cithria the Brave!
Table of Contents
First Impression
On the Riot MMO recruiting page we immediately see a young unestablished girl. She has a curious look on her face as she takes in all of the city’s beauty. All she has is her backpack, and a wooden short sword. Basically, Cithria looks like a level 3 beginner.
There is a connection between the Cithria, representing newbies, and the humble beginnings of the MMO team. This image perfectly captures the feeling new players hope to feel when getting into a new MMORPG. A new city of explore. An expansive world with mobs to clear and quests to complete.
On top of that, the image depicts the City of Demacia. In our What Starting Zones will the Riot MMO have, we picked Demacia as #1 Most Likely. Even if this image had not surfaced, we’d still have chosen Demacia as most likely starting zone. Mostly because Demacia is a fan favorite. Of course, the cluster of regions Valoran has helps incredibly too.
Riot MMO Recruiting Analysis
Looking at the meat and potatoes, Riot states they are working on an MMORPG. It’s not just an MMO. The RPG (Role Playing Game) infers the following features;
- Character creation
- Character customization
- Race selection
- Combat style options
- Quests
- Exploration
- Loot and gear progression
- Presumably bosses, raids, group content etc.
Riot’s MMO is Based on the League Universe
The webpage says, ‘based on the League universe’. That is an incredible telling. The League of Legends lore has been in development for over a decade. If you read the League of Legends lore, you will get a strong sense of what to expect from the upcoming Riot MMO.
What’s crazy is League has a dedicated lore website, called League Universe. It’s rather expansive and will have you reading for weeks or months before fully completing. The League Universe includes information on champions, regions, stories, comics, and an interactive map of Runeterra.
Because of the worldbuilding, we have a rather accurate vision of what the MMO will look like. Granted, the entire map probably won’t be playable day 1.
Riot’s MMO will have League’s Champions
Further than just the map, the Riot MMO will include the champions of League of Legends. Before you get too excited, no… I don’t think the champions will be playable. We believe the champions will be reserved for storytelling, more questlines, and raid bosses. For example, Mordekaiser could be an end game raid boss.
The Riot MMO will likely have League’s Art Style
We already know Riot Games develops using a cartoon styled art design. An MMO based on the League Universe just doubles down on that expectation. On top of that, the three images shown on the Riot MMO recruiting page are from Legends of Runeterra. The same art style, once again. Therefore, we think it’s highly likely the Riot MMO will feature a cartoon styled art theme, just like League of Legends.
A Hint to the Scope of the Game
Included is one of the most important sentences on the page.
Riot: We’re Making an MMO
We know MMOs take a lot of people to create, and we’ll need a pretty big raid team if we want to bring Runeterra to life.
The scope of this MMO appears to go beyond the recent RuneForge games. This MMO is being built in house. Interestingly, Marc Merrill was interviewed and was asked about if a Riot MMO could be in the works. He said, not anytime soon. It would be a massive undertaking that would require in-house development. That was on December 18, 2019. And here we are now.
Based on Marc Merrill’s previous statement, and this new Riot MMO Recruiting page, we can tell this game will be big! The imagined scope will be vast. Much of the worldbuilding will be innovation, not creation from scratch. The known budget Riot has can and will propel development time in the right direction. Whatever their wishes are. Perhaps the development team wants to take their time and release a more polished product later. Or maybe they will work fervently and blow us away. Either way, these two indications tell us Riot does not plan to publish just another small project here.
Positions the Riot MMO Recruiting is Targeting
The Riot MMO recruiting website does explain they aren’t looking for precise positions at the moment. Still, they do mention below they’d like applicant to possess particular experience and skillsets. You can read what the Riot MMO recruiting website is looking for in the table below.
Gameplay
Engineer
The gameplay engineer lays the foundation for the rest of the development team. Gameplay engineers write the code for the gaming software. In the Riot MMO’s case, this software will be written from scratch in Unreal Engine 5.
Furthermore, the gameplay engineer ensures the long-term efficiency of the game. They’ll help ensure the game is bug free. They’ll be supporting the other staff members to ensure they can develop their design or artwork as efficiently as possible. That is of course because they are using the program the gameplay engineer has written. Pre-planning aside, this is the first major step towards game development.
Game Design
The game designer’s take instructions from the senior game designers and producers. A vision is set forward and the game designers bring it to life. Using various software, the game designer uses code to create characters, maps, themes, and world items.
On top of that, the game designers write code much like the gameplay engineers. Although the code is usually to allow for seamless interactions between characters, items, and the world.
Beneath much of the obvious interaction, the game designer will implement more code. The less obvious code could be triggers death when an mob dies. It could also be triggering the next combat phase after a particular action has been achieved.
UX Design
In larger gaming development companies, such as Riot there often exists a UX Design Role. UX Design is User Experience Design. Not to be confused with UI (User Interface) Design.
The UX Design has more high level functions. They are interested in the strategy and plan behind the user experience. Examples include, what information is needed for players to interact with the world. Or perhaps, the organization of said information.
While they may not get into the nitty gritty of deploying it, they are an important role, especially early on.
Game Art
The video game artist is rather self explanatory. They are responsible for the creation of 2D and 3D art in the game. This may come in the form of character models, clothing, environment, textures, particles, and more.
At this stage of development, they may be searching for a particular theme for their version of Runeterra.
And depending on when you’re reading this, these game artist may even be developing the character you will one day play on!
Game Production
The Riot MMO Recruiting page also needs game producers. I believe they are referring to the higher level positions such as game directors and game producers.
If so, these roles are responsible for the overall game direction, and overseeing their teams.
They need to maintain deadlines, and ensure the team is working effectively.
As it turns out, it is less of a creation, hands on role. More of a business management type of position.
Insights About the Riot MMO Recruiting Page
This is great because learning about these positions tells us the stage in development they are in. While these five roles are incredible specific, they are somewhat telling.
First, the game will be big enough where, game developers, UX and UI and distinguished. Sometimes, in smaller scale games, these roles overlap. No the case here, clearly. Basically, the budget is big and the scale of the game is large.
Next, at the time of writing, they are in early-development. There is likely no game engine and world built as of February 22, 2021. And if any leaks come out or came out around this time, they are probably fan made. Such as this Darius character selection image.
Closing Thoughts on Recruiting Page
In the last paragraph, the Riot MMO recruiting page encourages job seekers to check out the Riot career page. We also encourage the dedicated fans to keep an eye out on that page. It’s possible there could be a job posting for direct experience in
- Unreal Engine 5
- 3rd person / 1st person perspective
- Experience building dungeons/raids
- Experience in action combat / tab-target combat
- etc.
The list goes on. If the Riot Careers page has a MMO and R&D (research and development) job post. Check it out if you’re curious. You may find job experience requirements that are telling about the upcoming game. More specifically, the direction of the game. Remember, all of this information is subject to change.
We are so early, but so eager!