Former World of Warcraft Lead Combat Designer has joined Riot's League of Legends MMO

News on Riot's upcoming League of Legends MMO has been thin on the ground, but things are definitely moving behind the scenes at the company, as former Lead Combat Designer for World of Warcraft Brian 'Swolinka' Holinka has joined up to become the Principal Game Designer of the project.

It's been over five years since Greg Street announced that Riot was working on an MMO game set in the League of Legends universe, back in December 2020. Since then, Street, who was Vice President of the project, has departed the company entirely, and Riot has reset development after deciding that what it had wasn't unique enough from the existing competition.

Half a decade on, there's still very little publicly known about the game, and you'd be forgiven if you forgot it was happening. At Riot, though, things are still moving behind the scenes, as this new hire shows.

Holinka is an experienced hand and spent over a decade at Blizzard between 2012 and 2023. During his stint there, he spent almost five years as the game's Lead PvP Designer and spent over four years as the Lead Combat Designer. With a ton of expertise in crafting combat experiences in MMOs, he feels like a natural fit for Riot's attempt at the genre. He's not the first former WoW dev to join the project, either, with former Lead Producer Raymond Bartos also working at Riot now as a Senior Game Producer.

Holinka announced the move on his LinkedIn page, as revealed by oheyspun on X. His job history says he starts the role in June 2026, although it's unclear whether today, June 1, is his first day or if he officially starts later in the month.

Aside from snippets from game developers who are joining the project, Riot has remained tight-lipped on its progress. The last major statement was released back in November 2024, with Chief Product Officer Marc Merrill stating that the company is "working very hard on it" and that the team has "a great direction now and is making a lot of momentum." Even when Riot decided to reset development, Merrill remained confident in the project, tweeting that Riot believed in the game and the team working on it.

As for when we'll get our hands on it, that remains firmly up in the air. At least we know that Riot still sees a future in it and is hiring developers with huge experience in the MMO world.