Brian Holinka Joins Riot’s League of Legends MMO as Principal Designer

Brian Holinka has joined Riot Games as a principal designer on the Riot Games MMO, adding another longtime MMO developer to a project Riot still hasn’t shown in public.

Holinka, best known for his years at Blizzard as World of Warcraft’s lead PvP designer, announced his “first official day” at Riot in a post on X. He was most recently working on Project Ghost at Fantastic Pixel Castle, the studio led by Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street before it shut down after failing to secure new funding.

In a follow-up post, Holinka said he had already watched a playtest and praised the team working on bringing Runeterra into MMO form. That’s about as close as we’re getting to a status update right now. Riot still hasn’t shared gameplay, platforms, a release window, or even the game’s final title.

The League of Legends MMO has had a quiet few years. Riot confirmed in 2024 that the project had gone through a major reset, saying the team needed to take a different approach rather than build something too familiar. Since then, news has mostly come through hiring and staffing changes rather than trailers or feature reveals.

Holinka’s arrival doesn’t answer the big questions players have, but it does show Riot is still staffing the MMO with people who have shipped and maintained large online worlds. For now, though, the game remains firmly in “wait and see” territory.