Phreak isn't working on League of Legends anymore, he's on a secret new Riot project instead

David ‘Phreak’ Turley has confirmed that he’s no longer working as a game designer on League of Legends. In his patch 26.07 rundown video, the former LCS caster confirms that he’s stopped working on the MOBA directly and has instead transferred to another team within Riot. The 26.07 patch rundown will be his last video “for a while,” then, which some will lament, but others will no doubt rejoice over.

Despite accruing a loyal fanbase during his time on the LCS broadcast, Phreak’s contributions to League of Legends as a game designer have left the community divided. Rightly or wrongly, he’s often associated with the game’s consistent lack of balance, which has got progressively worse over the past few years. From ‘top lane island’ to ADCs having little to no agency, as the game continues to expand, Riot seems unsure how to go about balancing it.

As the person who does most of the patch previews, Phreak has been placed in the firing line – so much so that a series of “death threats” led to him quitting social media back in 2023. While balance will always be a hot topic and there’s no real way to please absolutely everyone, it’s clear that Phreak has, in many ways, become somewhat of a scapegoat.

That, however, is not why he’s leaving the dev team. “This will be my last patch covering as a live designer,” he says in his 26.07 preview video. “Late last year – or early this year – I was asked if I wanted to work on a different project within League of Legends. I said yes, and then I built a plan for offboarding onto the project and off of live design, and so that’s been happening over the last several months.

“Ultimately, although there’s no details to share – I am still a game designer on League of Legends – I wanted to move over. I think it’s a very, very cool project. I think a lot of you will really love it. I’m very excited about this overall. But yeah, this is my last patch as a live designer for, I guess, quite a while. All I can really say here.

“Why am I not going to do any more of these videos?” he asks, rhetorically. “If we go back to the history of it when I was a shoutcaster, I was just some guy – sure, I worked at Riot, but I was just some guy on the outside giving my opinions on stuff. That felt reasonable to do as just like, a highly-engaged League player. Then I became a game designer and I gave my opinions… but as a designer still working on League but not directly involved with the stuff, that just feels weird.

“I don’t want to critique other peoples’ work publicly when it’s not my job to do so. I think it’s just way easier to not talk about these anymore.”

Of course, the question is: which project? There’s obviously the mysterious MMO, and there have been a few high-profile hires at Riot over the past few months. There are also rumors of a Genshin-like action RPG, but none of those have been substantiated.

We’ll likely just have to wait and see, but if you’re going to miss the patch previews, I’d suggest keeping your eye on lead gameplay designer Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison’s X account, where he consistently drops written previews of upcoming patches, as well as detailed reasoning from the team. Oh, and obviously come back to PCGamesN. That’s a given.