League of Legends MMO Insider News: Holinka Hire and the $250M Ashes of Creation Offer

Riot Games' Runeterra MMO just had its busiest month of news in years. In June 2026, former World of Warcraft combat designer Brian Holinka officially joined the project as principal game designer, and court documents from an unrelated lawsuit revealed that Riot once offered between $250 million and $500 million to acquire Ashes of Creation studio Intrepid Studios. Neither story is a rumor anymore. Both are confirmed, and together they reshape what fans know about Riot's MMO strategy.

Brian Holinka Joins the Riot MMO Team

Holinka spent close to 11 years at Blizzard Entertainment, rising from lead PvP designer to lead combat designer on World of Warcraft. In that role he owned every combat-related system in the game, including class design and the full PvP suite covering arenas and battlegrounds. He left Blizzard in 2023 and joined Fantastic Pixel Castle, the studio founded by former Riot MMO executive producer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street to build a project codenamed Ghost. That studio lost its funding from NetEase in 2025 and shut down. Holinka announced his move on social media, confirming his first official day at Riot working on the League of Legends MMO. He described the reaction to the announcement as overwhelming and said he watched a playtest that left him excited about the team's direction. His LinkedIn profile lists his title as principal game designer on the in-development MMO.

His hire is not an isolated event. Former WoW lead producer Raymond Bartos joined the same team as senior game producer in January 2026, and former WoW lead software engineer Orlando Salvatore came aboard back in October 2024 as senior engineering manager. With Holinka's arrival, three former Blizzard MMO leads now hold senior positions on the same Riot project, covering production, engineering, and combat design.

Why a Combat Designer Matters Right Now

Placing a dedicated combat lead into the role signals that systems work has moved past early concepts and into active design. Combat is one of the hardest problems in MMO development because it has to hold up across solo content, group content, and competitive PvP at the same time. Bringing in someone who managed that exact balance for years at Blizzard suggests Riot wants the action combat direction it has previously described to be backed by proven expertise rather than built from scratch.

The $250-500 Million Offer for Ashes of Creation

Separately, court filings tied to an ongoing lawsuit between Ashes of Creation creator Steven Sharif and a group of Intrepid Studios investors surfaced an email from December 2022. The email, sent by Riot Games CFO Mark Sottosanti to Sharif and Intrepid CFO John Moore, proposed a total Riot investment of roughly 250 to 500 million dollars to acquire Intrepid Studios outright. The plan described scaling support for Ashes of Creation after launch and continuing to fund the game for years afterward. Intrepid turned the offer down. According to statements filed as part of the litigation, investor Robert Dawson opposed the sale because he wanted more control over the studio himself. Ashes of Creation went on to launch into Steam early access in late 2025, received heavy criticism, and was pulled from sale shortly after. Sharif and several senior staff resigned in January 2026, followed by mass layoffs in February.

Riot Confirms the Talks

Riot co-founder Marc Merrill addressed the leak directly, confirming that the company looked at investing in or acquiring Intrepid a few years earlier but ultimately walked away from the discussions. He said Intrepid shared Riot's goal of building a great MMO, but combining the two efforts did not make sense for Riot. The statement closes the door on speculation that Riot is still considering an acquisition route; the deal was explored once, in 2022, and never revisited.

Where the Runeterra MMO Stands Today

The project, internally referred to as the Runeterra MMO, was first announced in December 2020 under Greg Street's leadership. After Street's departure in 2023, Riot confirmed in March 2024 that the game had gone through a significant reset because the earlier version felt too similar to existing MMORPGs on the market. Executive producer Fabrice Condominas has led the project since the reset, with Marc Merrill describing himself as heavily involved in its direction. No gameplay footage, screenshots, or official title have been released as of June 2026. Art director Greg Faillace has described the visual direction as familiar but distinct from League of Legends, Arcane, and Legends of Runeterra. Community estimates for a release window sit between 2028 and 2030, a timeframe Merrill himself referenced when he reposted a comparison to the length of a Mars mission.

Both stories landed at a moment when the MMO genre has had a rough stretch. Ashes of Creation's collapse after years of crowdfunded hype gave fans a cautionary tale about overpromising in the genre, and seeing how close Riot came to absorbing that exact project adds weight to the story. At the same time, stacking three former Blizzard MMO leads onto one team is the kind of buildup players associate with a studio getting serious, not just maintaining a placeholder project. The combination of a near-miss acquisition and a high-profile hire is why the topic spread so fast across MMORPG communities this month.

Final Thoughts

The Holinka hire and the Ashes of Creation revelation tell two different parts of the same story. Riot tried to buy its way into the MMO genre in 2022, decided against it, and has since doubled down on building its own Runeterra MMO with a roster of experienced Blizzard veterans. The rejected acquisition is closed history confirmed by Riot itself, while the hiring pattern around Holinka, Bartos, and Salvatore points to a project that is actively staffing for combat, production, and engineering rather than sitting idle. There is still no release window, no gameplay, and no confirmed title, but six years after the initial announcement, the signs point to a team that is finally moving past the planning stage.