After spending a decade as the voice of North American League of Legends, one of the game’s most recognizable casters is stepping away from the broadcast and taking a new path in his career.
Popular community figure David “Phreak” Turley is retiring from shoutcasting and will be moving on to become a game designer for Riot Games on the Summoner’s Rift team, he announced today. This new role has been a dream of the 35-year-old since his college days and he’s now realizing this goal with the game he has specialized in over countless seasons.
“This felt like the right time,” Phreak said. “There’s a lot that I still have to figure out in terms of my full competencies and everything else, [so] I’m going to be learning a lot.”
Phreak started his journey with Riot back in 2009, when he applied to both community and game design internships. He eventually landed the community internship, which paved the way to becoming one of the most beloved faces in the League ecosystem, from champion spotlights to casting matches at the World Championship.
This past year, however, Phreak secured an interview for a game design position at Riot. By the end of the Summer Split, the veteran caster knew that he wanted to chase down this opportunity, and then during Worlds, he found out that he passed the interview, accepted the job offer, and will be starting in January.
Phreak’s background as a League caster should be a boon for the decisions he’ll be making as part of the Summoner’s Rift team at Riot, along with the different conversations and connections he has with other game designers he’s met during his career. He did admit that taking a leap into the unknown can be frightening since he can’t guarantee that he’ll be great coming out of the gate, but Riot is confident in his talent.
His infectious energy in the play-by-play will be missed by many when the new season begins next year.
