Riot is "more committed to" the League of Legends MMO "than ever," co-founder says, but it did consider buying the now-dead Ashes of Creation

All sorts of revelations are being uncovered about Ashes of Creation, the fantasy MMO that finally went into early access last year after a successful Kickstarter in 2017 only to crash and burn shortly after. One of the biggest is that Riot Games apparently considered forking over a nine-figure sum for the project, and the company has now confirmed that much.

"We looked at making an investment or even acquiring Intrepid a few years ago, but Riot decided not to move forward with discussions," Marc Merill, co-founder, co-chair and CPO of Riot Games, said on Twitter.

"The team there shared our goal of making the next great MMO — something we’re more committed to than ever — but combining efforts ultimately didn’t make sense for us," he adds. He's referencing Riot's ongoing attempts to make a League of Legends MMO, an embattled effort that's been underway for years behind the scenes.

According to an email from Riot in 2022, the company was looking at picking up Intrepid and Ashes of Creation for a hefty $250 million, with plans to support the game through launch and for decades to come. What this would've looked like isn't explained; a possible strategic outline is redacted.

But it would've been big, for both Riot and Ashes of Creation. I have to imagine, if the plan wasn't to turn Ashes of Creation into the Runeterra MMORPG, that supporting two MMOs, both offering broadly similar experiences, probably seemed like a lot of needless work and competition.

Likewise, given how things went for Intrepid, perhaps Riot could see some aspects of the business that didn't seem on the level. There have since been allegations of misappropriated funds from the Kickstarter, all denied by Intrepid co-founder Steven Sharif. Whatever the case, in another timeline, maybe we're all playing this game and it's a WoW killer. We'll just never know.

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