Vermain posted:

On the skeptical side, I will say that the lore revamp could easily have a far more generic origin: Riot realized they had a highly marketable IP and decided to do the legwork in making it presentable for broader consumption.To me, it's never been a question of there eventually being another League-related title, but what form it would take has always been up in the air.

Still, there's a lot going in favor of it being an MMO. It's a genre with broad worldwide appeal for an IP that's meant to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. There's samurai, pirates, steampunks, Norse barbarians, old timey knights, furries, magical girls, and chuuni demons all crammed together into a single universe. You'd have a hard time not hitting at least one aesthetic button for a potential player interested in customization. The fact that two of their more recent special event modes (Star Guardians and Odyssey) featured MMO-style boss battles at the end smells a lot like developers testing ideas more than an inspired bit of creativity.