Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill joked about a LoL MMO—but it’s not a bad idea

One of the biggest memes involving League of Legends publisher Riot Games is the “s” in their name.

You see, Riot has actually only published one real game. And while they’ve hinted at other projects from time to time and even released some concepts, there’s no sign of another game coming.

On Tuesday, Riot co-founder Marc Merrill pulled at the heartstrings of League fans everywhere by tweeting—lightheartedly and most likely in jest—that he’d think about creating a League-based MMO. And that’s when the community lost its mind.

The reaction from key figures came rapidly, vociferously, and overwhelmingly positively. Reply after reply came in supporting the idea and lambasting Merrill for potentially memeing the community with the idea. The reason? A League MMO is actually a pretty good idea.

League is never going to go head-to-head with Blizzard’s World of Warcraft in direct competition for MMO diehards. But it does have its own story and lore to talk about—and those facets of the game are improving every day. And MMO would be the perfect way to take advantage of that rich history and build something immersive for League’s own fanbase.

And while that could risk taking people away from the online five-vs-five gameplay that has been the core of League of many years, it’s likely that some of those players are leaving anyway. An MMO could draw a whole new class of fans towards the game.

Some of the biggest problems new players face are a steep learning curve, long game times, and flaming from teammates in competitive matches. A MMO solves a lot of those problems. It would allow players to build emotional connections with League‘s characters and stories—and if they want to battle it out on Summoner’s Rift, they can.

There will always be those that love League for the thrill of competition. That will hopefully never go away. But there are other ways to enjoy the franchise as well, and an MMO could be a great bridge.

We’re pretty sure Merrill was just joking, but this could actually be one of his best ideas. Until then, it’s back to reworking Ryze for the thirteenth time.