Best known for her series World of (Tanks, Warplanes and Warships), publisher Wargaming has just separated from a new studio. Indeed, at the start of 2022, the formerly Belarusian and now Cypriot group had announced the relocation of its premises following the war against Ukraine, and had sold Lesta Studio, a third-party developer under its control, in order to cut off all relations with the Russia. From now on, it is Wargaming Sydney, in Australia, which is changing hands.
In a message published by Riot Games, the father in particular of League of Legends, we learn that the publisher recovers the studio and the renames Riot Sydneywith one objective: to develop the brand’s service games.
It is a world-class development center, with experience developing next-generation tools and servers, large-scale games and a few R&D projects, as well as prototypes for new game features or ports to consoles. […] This new Riot Sydney studio will use its expertise to further develop League of Legends, VALORANT, and Riot tech teams.
Wargaming will retain ownership of its Bigworld engine
Riot Sydney is already working on projects in research and development, game ports to consoles or new live-service features. The current team will remain in place, and will henceforth be under the direction of Molly Mason-Bouleindustry veteran and head of development studios.
This studio is one of the biggest development studios in Australia, it has worked on World of Tanks, World of Warships and many other titles on PC and consoles. This studio’s award-winning technology, Bigworld Technology, was the catalyst that got it into Wargaming in 2012. Prior to that, Bigworld Technology was integrated into more than 30 MMOs and online games, and held the Guinness World Record for the most players online simultaneously on a single MMO server. Wargaming will retain ownership of Bigworld Technology and continue to use it for its products. This acquisition comes 10 years after Bigworld joined Wargaming and helped the studio create some of the most popular games in the world.
