EVE Online Lead Designer Abandons Ship For Riot

Like a tidal wave, Riot Games has been known to swallow up new developers left and right. Hiring the best from around the globe, Riot has become a black hole for well known developers to gravitate to, even pulling in leads from other franchises. This past week Riot managed to snag what could possibly be their brightest star among an already impressive pool of talent, EVE Online's Lead Designer, Kristoffer Touborg.

Touborg explained his decision to move on from CCP in a Facebook post:

"More than half a decade ago, I packed my bags and moved to Iceland to work for CCP. It’s been an incredible five years, working for a company I love, on a game I love. Not a lot of people get that opportunity, but I did and I’ll always be grateful that CCP let me work at a place where I’d get up every morning and be happy to go to work."

“You can’t do the same thing forever and I feel like after more than five years, it’s time to try something new. So I’m packing my bags again and moving to Dublin, where I’ll be joining Riot games to work on League of Legends.”

“I feel a bit lucky that I get to work on not just one of my favorite games, but two of them. I don’t think I could have asked for anything more and it’s pretty humbling to go from one love to another. A few years ago, my overwhelming interest was the EVE universe; now it’s League of Legends and the competitive scene there. To everyone at CCP, it’s been wonderful and I would happily do it all over again. To everyone at Riot, I’ll see you soon.”

As to what exact role Touborg will play in the development of League of Legends is unclear. That being said, Riot wouldn't have snagged the Lead Designer from the world's most popular Sci-Fi MMO just to have him head up Customer Support. No word yet from CCP on who will replace Touborg as Lead Designer for EvE Online.