Raymond Bartos, producer on the World of Warcraft team, has announced his new role at a rival studio. He’ll now be working on a whole new MMO, the much-anticipated and very mysterious Riot Games MMO no less.
In a post on Bartos’ Linkedin, he wrote the following alongside a collection of pictures at Riot Games’ LA office: “From my very first conversation with Riot, I immediately gravitated toward their values–and I was genuinely impressed by how clearly those values showed up throughout the interview process. It made it obvious that kindness, respect, and care aren’t just words here, but something the team truly lives by.
“I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to join such an inspiring group of people, and I can’t wait to get started–showing up every day to provide value for Riot gamers and help deliver an MMO experience players truly enjoy.”
Bartos was part of the team which shipped the popular Plunderstorm mode for World of Warcraft, as well as multiple limited-time remix modes and the game’s 20th anniversary event. Bartos also noted he’ll be working alongside one Orlando Salvatore, another former World of Warcraft veteran who jumped ship to Riot Games late last year.
There are in fact quite a few big names, formerly of Blizzard, that have ended up working on this MMO. Natalia Leenhardt was an 11-year alumni at the company before joining Amazon Game Studios in 2021 for New World, later joining the Riot Games MMO team in 2023. Kevin Carter joined Riot back in 2017 after over ten years at Blizzard, and of course the old executive producer on the Riot MMO Greg Street was a legendary World of Warcraft developer, though he left back in 2023.
So what do we know about the Riot MMO? Not much! We know it’s set in the Runeterra universe, like most of Riot Games’ works are. We know the game had a “reset in direction” some years ago, and that there’s been very little in the way of on-the-record discussion about it. That is, except for an interview with League lore content creator Necrit back in 2023.
So there’s been no word of any sort of reveal as of yet, nor any sort of timeline as to when we’re likely to see it happen. Still, the continued hiring of staff is certainly a good indicator that serious work is being done.
