WoW Lead Producer Leaves Blizzard To Work On Riot's Long-In-Development MMO

World of Warcraft lead producer Raymond Bartos has left Blizzard to join Riot, where he will work on the League of Legends developer's upcoming MMO.

Bartos said, "I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to join such an inspiring group of people, and I can't wait to get started." Serving as a senior game producer, Bartos said his job will be to "help deliver an MMO experience players truly enjoy."

Additionally, Bartos said he's excited to join another former WoW developer, Orlando Salvatore, at Riot. "Given our track record on World of Warcraft, I have a feeling we'll be moving fast on day one," Bartos said.

He joins Riot following the developer's announcement in 2024 that it was resetting its MMO project, saying it will go back to the drawing board and stay silent for "years to come" as it reshaped the project. The MMO was originally announced as a League of Legends game set in the world of Runeterra. The game had been in the works since at least 2020 prior to its "reset" in 2024.

As announced previously, ex-Bioware and EA developer Fabrice Condominas is serving as the game's new executive producer.

Riot had always expected its MMO project to take time to materialize. The game's former executive producer, WoW veteran Greg Street, said there was "no guarantee" the game would ever be released, as the team wouldn't ship a game it thought would "disappoint players." Street left Riot in March 2023 after nine years with the company to start his own studio, Fantastic Pixel Castle, which is now making a AAA MMORPG under the codename Ghost, funded by NetEase.

Riot has also been in the news lately regarding the game Hytale. The company canceled the game in 2025, but its original developer bought the rights from Riot and released the game just recently to big success.

And in other MMO news, Amazon Games just announced that its MMO New World will shut down in January 2027.

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