If you watched Riot Games’ presentation of its upcoming titles this past fall and wondered why it wasn’t branching out into every genre you wanted, well, now you can do it yourself – all you need is a ton of money and a fleet of developers. The IP, it seems, is up for grabs by way of Riot’s new concoction, Riot Forge. It’s essentially a publishing label through which Riot will enable other studios to bake up new games – “bespoke ‘completable’ League of Legends games” for PC, console, and mobile – under Riot’s watchful gaze. “Completable” can probably be read here as “not open-ended” – so no MOBAs or MMOs or sandboxes.
“We’re a player- and developer-focused publisher; our mission is to bring awesome new League of Legends games to players by partnering with experienced and talented developers from around the world. The League Universe and its champions offer limitless possibilities; by supporting and empowering passionate partners to tell their own stories and expand the League world, we’ll deliver a variety of bespoke games that enable players of all types to experience League in new and exciting ways. We can’t wait to get these games to players and play them ourselves!”
While the company’s new website for Forge doesn’t actually name-drop any studios, Riot does say it’s already working with some. “[R]est assured they’re already hard at work creating the incredible experiences for our players,” it says. “Part of the reason we haven’t announced them publicly is to minimize any distractions for them. […] When they’re a little further along, we’ll announce the games that they are making.”
