Project T: Riot's other MMO, and why it is not this one

Riot Games has never said the words "Project T" in public. Everything known about it comes from job listings, one leaked screenshot, and two leakers. That is thinner than the record on the Runeterra MMO, which is already thin, and it has not stopped Project T from becoming the most consequential unannounced game in the Riot MMO's story, because when it wobbled in March 2026, the Runeterra MMO took the headline.

This article is the file on the other game: what the listings said, what the screenshot showed, who runs it, what the rumours claim, and why it matters to a site about a different project entirely.

What the job listings said

The codename surfaced in early 2023, when users on Discord noticed Riot job postings that described a multiplayer first-person shooter with MMO features. The listings used the language of persistent online games: seasons, progression tied to "personal quarters", weapon modification. One listing briefly named the Valorant universe as the setting before Riot edited that detail out, which is the nearest thing to a confirmation the project has had.

Around the same period, a separate Riot posting for a third-person action game was widely speculated to be the Runeterra MMO's combat or a shooter spin-off. It was not clear then and is not clear now which project it belonged to. That ambiguity is the origin of the confusion that followed.

What the screenshot showed

In 2024, a screenshot circulated that outlets including The Game Post and Pley reported as Project T. It showed a first-person view in an environment consistent with Valorant's art direction, with interface elements that suggested equipment and loadout systems rather than a round-based competitive match. The reporting converged on a description: an extraction shooter or MMOFPS in the mould of Destiny 2, with seasonal content, weapon modification and player housing of some kind.

Riot did not comment on the screenshot. Its authenticity has not been confirmed. We mention it because the description it produced has been stable across every subsequent report, which is unusual for a leak and suggests the picture was real or close to it.

Who runs it

The executive producer is reported to be Matt Zitterman, formerly production director on Destiny 2 at Bungie. That is the single most informative fact about Project T, for the same reason that Brian Holinka's arrival is the most informative fact about the Runeterra MMO: you hire the person who built the reference game when you intend to build something in its category. A Destiny production director on a seasonal, loot-driven shooter is not a coincidence.

Nothing else about the team is public.

What the rumours claim

Two rumours, both from the same leaker, @BigBadBear_.

A closed playtest was said to have taken place on 26 August 2025. Unconfirmed.

On the night of 23 to 24 March 2026, the leaker reported that Riot was "completely overhauling or possibly even cancelling" Project T, that it would be transformed into a "Genshin-like" open-world game with multiplayer elements and a mobile version, and that repeated layoffs had damaged development. Also unconfirmed, and also never denied. The full account of that night, and of how it became a headline about the wrong game, is in the March 2026 cancellation rumour, taken apart.

As of this article's date, Riot has not acknowledged that Project T exists, so it cannot have acknowledged that it was cancelled. The project may be dead, changed beyond recognition, or exactly as it was. Anyone who tells you which is guessing.

Why it matters to the Runeterra MMO

Three reasons.

The confusion is structural. Riot has two projects that fans call "the Riot MMO". One is a fantasy MMORPG in the world of League of Legends, run by Fabrice Condominas under Marc Merrill, in development since at least 2020 and reset in 2024. The other is a shooter in the world of Valorant, run by a former Destiny producer, known only by a letter. Any leak that does not name the setting will be attached to whichever project the reader cares about, and the Runeterra MMO has by far the larger audience. The March episode will not be the last.

The fates are linked. Riot has spent 2024 to 2026 cutting projects that lost momentum: Riot Forge, Hytale, most of 2XKO. If Project T has been cut or transformed, it is one more data point in the same series, and the Runeterra MMO's survival through that series becomes more striking, not less. We make that argument in why the MMO survived Riot's purge.

The "Genshin-like" claim, if true, would say something about the Runeterra MMO's neighbours. A Riot open-world game with mobile in scope, set in League's world, would sit close to the MMO in audience and in setting. We have no evidence it exists beyond one post, and we treat it accordingly. But it is the kind of thing that, if real, Riot would eventually have to explain alongside the MMO, and it belongs on the list of things to watch.

What we do not know

Whether Project T still exists in any form.

Whether it was ever formally an MMO, or a shooter with persistent elements that job listings described loosely.

Whether the team shares technology or people with the Runeterra MMO. Both are Riot projects on Unreal, but nothing has linked them beyond that.

Whether Riot will ever announce it. The company said nothing about it through three years of listings and leaks, and its statements about the Runeterra MMO, sparse as they are, have never mentioned a sibling.

For the game this site actually follows, the current state is in everything we actually know about the Riot MMO.