League of Legends developer Riot Games has announced new ownership of Australian studio Wargaming Sydney (opens in new tab) to "accelerate live game development.

The studio was founded in 2002 as BigWorld Technology (opens in new tab) and became well known as the creator of the BigWorld toolset used in over 30 MMOs and online games. and was involved in the development of the company's military MMOs "World of Tanks," "World of Warships," and "World of Warplanes. With the acquisition, the company changed its name to Riot Sydney and will support League of Legends, Vallorant, and Riot's technical team.

"We are really excited to welcome these talented developers and teams to Riot," said Marc Merrill, co-founder and president of Riot Games.

"Having had the opportunity to work with members of the Sydney team, the Rioters have confidence not only in the technology they have built over the years, but more importantly, in the people who have built it. Naz (Naresh Hirani, Head of Development at Riot Sydney) and the studio's development team have a long history of working in ways that complement Riot's ability to deliver value to players, and we are really looking forward to working with them."

Riot described its new Sydney operation as "one of Australia's largest development studios."

Riot did not specify the number of employees, but it is expected that Wargaming Sydney will open in 2019 with the Australian Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (opens in new tab), it was said to have "more than 100 developers," and according to LinkedIn (opens in new tab), with more than 5,500 employees spread across nearly a dozen studios worldwide, Wargaming is a relatively small slice of the pie. But it is a significant acquisition for Riot, which maintains and develops not one, but two major live games, and has other sparks (opens in new tab).

"Being part of Wargaming has been a phenomenal journey for us over the last 10 years and has helped our studio grow and flourish," said Riot's CEO, David Harris. We are truly impressed with the cultural fit we have experienced in our dealings with everyone at Riot and can't wait to bring our expertise in global development to their respective teams."

Riot Sydney will continue to operate from its current office, and Riot said it will retain its entire development staff. The publishing team and ownership of BigWorld will remain with Wargaming.