Former Riot executives lead development of ‘next generation’ open-world game with new IP

Some of the creative minds behind Riot Games’ many titles are joining forces once more, this time in pursuit of a separate endeavor that aims to break into the next generation of a popular genre.

Michael Chow, the former vice president of Riot, and Steven Snow, co-founder of Riot and previous executive producer of League of Legends, have once again joined forces—though this time to create a new game studio, The Believer Company. Accompanying them are various other notable faces from Riot and beyond, including Jeff Jew, Tim Hsu, Landon McDowell, Shankar Gupta-Harrison, and Grace Park, among others likely to join as the team develops.

The team’s first project is slated to be a “next generation open-world game” featuring a new IP, while also noting that players’ choices will greatly impact the direction that the story takes and the events that occur. But it is not expected that any further details regarding the game and its development will be revealed in the near future since the team wants the direction of the game to differ from that of other open-world titles.

“We want to take the time to get it right, because world-class R&D takes time,” Chow explained in an interview with James Batchelor of Gamesindustry.biz. “It requires a lot of risk-taking, it requires both creation and discovery, which are subtly but importantly different.”

Chow also noted that the team is already eyeing ways to expand their new IP outside of just video games, something that he and other members of The Believer Company are well-versed in following their previous endeavors.

The team begins its journey with an announced $55 million in funding, which will be used to bring in more creative minds and work on the open-world title.