Riot Games announce end of Riot Forge & more after laying off 530 employees

Riot Games has shared news regarding the end of Riot Forge, as well as the layoffs of roughly 530 staff, approximately 11% of the developer’s total workforce.

League of Legends and Valorant developer Riot Games has come forward with an announcement of new layoffs along with a broader company refocus. The industry giant revealed that roughly 530 staff members have been laid off globally, which represents approximately 11% of the entire company.

In a recent player update, the company explained how it’s taking steps to focus on areas that players are invested in, whilst reducing its commitment to areas that don’t have as much of an impact.

“The adjustments we’re making aim to focus us on the areas that have the greatest impact on your experience while reducing investment on things that don’t,” the January 22 blog explained.

Riot Games

Riot is most known for its popular MOBA League of Legends and tactical shooter Valorant.

Riot announces major layoffs and closure of Riot Forge

Alongside the news of the layoffs, Riot also announced that two projects would be heavily affected by the changes. These are the Runeterra card game Legends of Runeterra, and the Riot Forge.

Riot announced that Riot Forge would be ceasing new game development after the release of its sixth title Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story. The Forge was a partnership program that saw indie developers pair up to create single-player titles that told stories from the League of Legends universe.

“We’re proud of what we’ve done together to bring these stories to life, but it’s time to refocus our efforts on the ambitious projects underway internally at Riot.”

Riot Forge

Bandle Tale will be the final game released by Riot Forge, with the project being discontinued afterward.

Additionally, Riot’s card game Legends of Runeterra will be moving towards sustainability over new updates. The devs cited financial challenges as the reason behind this, with the game moving more towards the PvE Path of Champions mode, to allow the remaining team to experiment more in that space.

With Riot honing their focus on their popular IPs like Valorant and League of Legends, it’s uncertain if this will have a major impact on those titles.