Riot Games Announces Closure of Riot Forge and Cutbacks on Legends of Runeterra.

Well, well, well, today Riot Games announced that they will be attempting to bring their ecosystem towards a more sustainable future, meaning Riot Forge will be no more and Legends of Runeterra will see major cutbacks.

In their latest news article Riot Games told everyone that effective today, they are cutting back about 530 jobs or 11% of their total workforce. Mainly towards what they consider, teams working on things "outside of core development". Riot plans to focus more on the games that people continue to come back to, such as League of Legends and Valorant. And focusing less on the one-off games and Legends of Runeterra (LoR). To many, these may seem like small changes, as many people only play League or Valorant.

But to those who play those games, especially League, you may notice that your characters have specific voice interactions with each other, and some voice lines reference the world of Runeterra. That is due to LoR. LoR has always been the key to the majority of the Lore in League, and without it, lore within League may suffer. You might see champions having less of a backstory, or you may see less of a story to big projects like the massively popular show, Arcane. LoR provides all the storytelling and lore that these games and shows utilize while also having a big player base of its own! Riot added that LoR has always been a money pit, saying that it costs significantly more to develop than it makes. So for LoR, the team will not be entirely scrapped, but rather the new smaller team will shift focus towards the Path of Champions mode (PvE).

Riot Forge, on the other hand, is being entirely scrapped as soon as Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story is released. Riot Forge, if you don't know, is the overarching publishing label for all of the one-off games that Riot released, such as Ruined King or Song of Nunu. Riot Forge worked with indie developers to create all of their games, and this change will affect both the people working for Riot Forge and the indie developers who made previous games and those who had future games being worked on or planned. This change does not have the biggest impact on people who mainly play League or Valorant, but it does greatly affect those who love the universe of League of Legends, and it hits hard for those who love to play games about League without actually playing League. These games provided a nice switch up to League, as they have all been completely different genres and types of games.

Most importantly though, this change affects roughly 530 individuals and possibly even families. All of those employees have lost their jobs, and because of this, many other developers have reached out to extend offers. However, Riot did not just get rid of all of these people and toss them to the streets. Riot Games did what many employers do not and is giving all of those affected a severance package, bonuses, benefits, and much more.

These changes signal a worrisome future for gaming as many companies have already done the same, and many more could follow suit. It has yet to be identified why many companies are having to "shift focus" and lay employees off. It could be due to over-hiring during COVID-19, greed, or really anything.

All in all, many people will be upset by the recent changes Riot has announced, and we all feel for the people who lost their jobs. Hopefully, they are all able to find new jobs and excel in their future endeavours.